I seem to recall another thread about this, but I can’t find it.
Edge of Tomorrow In the movie the female main character had the nickname “The Angel of Verdun” because she was instrumental during a battle with the aliens at Verdun. Shortly after the original battle of Verdun there was a rumor that angels had been sighted over the battle of Verdun. There was ever a song written about it called “The Angels of Verdun”
The Triplets of Belleville During the movie they show a fake black and white cartoon featuring a black extotic dancer dancing around in a hula shirt made of bananas. This is a reference to the 1920’s black exotic dancer Josephine Baker.
In Toy Story 2 (? I think) when the fat dude is on the phone with someone in Japan, he ends the call with “don’t touch my moustache” which is the way English speakers memorize the Japanese for “you’re welcome:” douitashimashite.
South Park has a Christmas episode which had a 70s looking news guy say “Fighting the Frizzies at 11” before every commercial break. That is a reference to one of the commercials on a specific bootleg of the Star Wars Holiday special that has been passed around.
In the movie “Platoon” during one of the scenes when they walking around at a base, you can hear a radio playing in the background and distinctly hear “Gooooooooooood Morning Vietnam!”
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made summer by the glorious summer by the sun of York.”
“Sun” is a metaphor, a pun (i.e., “son” referring to Edward IV, son of Richard of York), and a historical reference: one of Edward’s symbols was the “sun in splendour.”
GMV was based very loosely on Adrian Cronauer who started broadcasts with that call. Although I’ll take Robin William’s rendition any day - this one gets old after the first 10 seconds, and it’s only halfway done.
More obscure to Americans than Japanese but in addition to the main character’s name in Dragon ball Z, Son Goku there are two other references to the character of the Trickster Monkey King. In Dragonball he rides around on a cloud and uses a Boh staff as a weapon just like the Trickster Monkey King.
Here’s an obscure one I failed to find on IMDB or TV Tropes trivia.
In the movie The Deer Hunter during the wedding scene the final song the bridal party and family sing as the Bride and Groom leave the building is the Russian song Katyusha. The song foreshadows and is thematically tied to the rest of the plot of the film as it’s about a sorrowful Russian woman who sings on a riverbank to her distant lover who’s fighting for his country that she will stay true to him. Though the song was popularized in regards to WW2 it very much matches how the various women in The Deer Hunter cope with their lovers being away in Vietnam.
In the Netflix series Z Nation, a season 4 episode has the zombie Apocalypse survivors heading for a rumored outpost in Canada. When the group crosses the border, they are attacked by Canadian zombies, including a hockey team, and Mounties. Two of the zombies are in civilian clothes. Their attire and body shapes make them look like Bob and Doug McKenzie.
I’m not sure about this one, I seem to be the only person who has made this connection, but when Rogue One was coming out, many people made the reference to “many Bothans died to bring us this information” but were always corrected as that was for the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
However, there is a scene in Rogue One where Krennic orders his Death Trooper squad to execute all the Death Star scientists. British slang for a scientist is to call them “boffins”. So in this movie, “many boffins died” in the building of the Death Star.