I read John Fowles’s The Collector only after it was referenced in Criminal Mind’s The Fisher King. And I am so glad I did. What a wonderful work.
What creative works have you read/heard/see only after having them referened in other creative works
This isn’t exactly what you are asking for but I tried Chow Fun after hearing George’s description of it in a Seinfeld episode (“It’s a broad noodle.”) and I loved it!
This is Cafe Society, so I’ll allow “tasted” too!
I had never seen A Streetcar Named Desire until I had seen the Simpsons musical version. I also had not seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe until after I had seen SCTV’s parody.
ETA: I also saw On the Waterfront because SCTV’s remake with Bobby Bitman was so awesome.
Virtually everything ever referenced by the 1930s-1960s Loony Tunes/Merrie Melodies and MGM cartoons. (Then-)contemporary and classic books, classical music and opera, jazz and swing, classic film. I still remember the day that I read Of Mice and Men, and realizing that the Abominable Snowman from the Marvin the Martian shorts was a parody.
As a kid, I wasn’t allowed to listen to much contemporary music, but I loved “Weird Al” Yankovic’s music. To this day, I can’t listen to “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” or “I Want a New Drug” (or most other originals) without “correcting” the song in my head to the Yankovic version.
More recently, I enjoyed Not Another Teen Movie quite thoroughly, and had seen all of the 80s-era films it parodied, but only began seeing the newer teen films it parodied afterward. It’s difficult to take things like American Beauty seriously when you’ve already seen it parodied.
I only read “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” after hearing the Iron Maiden song. Likewise I read “Johnny Got His Gun” after hearing Metallica’s “One”.
I read Richard Adams’ Watership Down after it was referenced in Stephan King’s The Stand.
I saw DOWNFALL only after my curiosity was sparked by seeing about a million of those parody videos on youtube.
I read In Dreams Begin Responsibilities by Delmore Schwartz because of the Velvet Underground’s song “European Son (to Delmore Schwartz)”.
There are a LOT of Simpsons references that qualify but that’s probably also because I was pretty young when I was exposed to the Simpsons (i.e., too young to watch/read a lot of the other things).
So, from Simpsons: The Shining, a Streetcar Named Desire, Frasier, Goodfellas, and many more.
Also, Lolita in “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by the Police.
I read and liked the Honor Harrington books by David Weber, and heard a lot of people describe them as “Horatio Hornblower in Space” (and Honor herself reads and praises a Hornblower book in one scene). So I decided to read the Hornblower books as well, and liked them, too.
Of Human Bondage because it was referenced in a Peanuts strip.
This.
Also, there were a lot of works referenced in Stephen King’s Danse Macabre (sp?) that I read because of that book. Kicked off a lot of good reading, including the works of Harlan Ellison and DF Jones.
Another Simpsons-inspired one: Mutiny on the Bounty (the book)
When I was 8 I read Stranger in a Strange Land and it mentioned Mars - Bringer of War by Holst.
My interest got piqued, and I badgered my mom into buying me the album, which being 1969 was on vinyl. Later when I got into college in the 80s, I wanted another copy, and went to a record store in Rochester but the only one I could find was the version by Isao Tomita, which was different but I liked it a lot. I have rebought it several times in both classical orchestration and Tomita’s synth version. I prefer the Bernstein version for classical =)
Sideshow Bob got me to watch Frazier.
I never heard In a Gadda Da Vida either until the Simpsons.
I read Kim because it was referenced in The English Patient.
There are probably several. Offhand, the only one I can recall is Venus in Furs.
I never listened to classical music much. Then I saw A Clockwork Orange. I went out and got a boxed set of Beethoven’s symphonies. After that I developed an interest in classical music generally.
I started reading Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom series (and, later, his other works) after seeing them referenced as beloved books by characters in some of Heinlein’s works. Before that, I’d avoided reading them because I was put off by the cover art with the green men and the semi-naked women. I also picked up a number of other SF authors from his many references to other authors.
I think I first got turned on to Heinlein by reading David Gerrold’s The World of Star Trek, when he mentioned how gracious Heinlein was in not going after him stealing the idea of “The Trouble with Tribbles” (and pointing out that they both owed a nod to the story “Pigs is Pigs.”)