allusions to other shows

I always like when there are references in one show to another show, particularly ones where the actor was in both unrelated shows. I think St. Elsewhere had a ton of them. My favorite on that series was an episode in which Dr. Craig goes to a conference in Philadelphia during the summer, and starts singing "It's hotter than hell in Phil-a-del-phi-a!"
If you don't know what this means, William Daniels played both Dr. Craig in St. Elsewhere and John Adams in 1776, where he sings this song.
The references could be other TV series, or movies, or even plays like I've mentioned here.
What are some that you like or remember?

More than an allusion, but likely the most famous reference to another show was the finale of Newhart, in which innkeeper Dick Loudon wakes up as Bob Hartley (The Bob Newhart Show), in bed with his wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette from the earlier show). In other words, the entire 7 or 8 seasons of Newhart had all been a dream.

At the time, I wondered if this was an allusion (or perhaps tribute) to the finale of St. Elsewhere, in which it is strongly implied that the entire series was the dream of Dr. Westphal's autistic (IIRC) son.

One 1965 episode of The Lucy Show featured William Frawley in a cameo role as a horse trainer. Lucy walks by him and says "Don't I know him from somewhere?" It was Frawley's last on-screen appearance, and he died a few months later, in early 1966.

There were some other references in Newhart's 80's show to his 70's show. There was an episode where Jack Riley (Elliott Carlin in the 70's show) was a guest at the inn and he made a remark about a crazy psychologist in Chicago. There was also a scene where Dick Loudon (Newhart) said he was watching his favorite TV show, and the theme music from his 70's show started playing.

The Nanny. Fran's grandmother Yetta was played by Ann Morgan Guilbert who played Millie on the Dick Van Dyke Show. Yetta was very senile. In one episode Yetta was convinced that Fran and Maxwell were Laura and Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke Show) and she was their neighbor Millie. She looked in the mirror, pointed at herself and said "There's Millie".

At the end of another episode another episode Fran, Yetta, and someone else (I forget who) are sitting in the couch watching TV. An old Dick Van Dyke show was on.

Fran: I always loved the neighbor Millie. I wonder why they never spun her off.
Yetta: I heard she was very hard to work with.

Maxwell (Charles Shaughnessy) comes into the room and stands behind the couch.
Fran (Changes the channel to Days of Our Lives): Days of Our Lives hasn't been the same since Shane left. (Shane was played by Charles Shaughnessy).
Maxwell: He auditioned for me once with that fake British accent.

anotherguy said:

There were some other references in Newhart's 80's show to his 70's show. There was an episode where Jack Riley (Elliott Carlin in the 70's show) was a guest at the inn and he made a remark about a crazy psychologist in Chicago. There was also a scene where Dick Loudon (Newhart) said he was watching his favorite TV show, and the theme music from his 70's show started playing.

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Another show in which Riley appeared as Carlin was another MTM show, St. Elsewhere. He was a patient in the mental ward with Oliver Clark (who had played another Newhart patient Mr. Herd). In the show, Clark plays a John Doe who thinks he's Mary Richards from MTM and goes around referencing other characters. What makes the bit really memorable is (at 37: 30 below) Betty White is playing a bureaucrat who Clark insists is Sue Ann Nivens, but she claims it's mistaken identity. Roughly eight minutes into the show Carlin and Clark's character are watching TV, with Carlin wanting to watch The White Shadow--yet another MTM show:

NOTE: The picture is smaller and audio speeded up, but it's still worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6jrll0L-U4

On an episode of All in the Family, Edith makes a comment about Perry Mason vigorously offering an objection by quickly rising to his feet, She then says (with a nod to Ironside), "He don't jump up no more."

A Gilligan's Island episode made a reference to Dr. Kildare.

On Michael Learned's post-Waltons series, Nurse, there were some Three Stooges fans on the crew. One episode, had regular interplay while the PA put out a call for "Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard."

Not really another TV show, but there was an inside joke on Chicago Hope connected to one of the show's stars. Christine Lahti. She had just won an Oscar and her character was battling with a patient who was offering phony boasts about what he'd do, and she replied, "Yeah, and I might win an Oscar."

Batman and Green Hornet had the same producer, so one scene on each show had Bruce and Dick watching Hornet and Britt and Kato watching Batman. The start of Batman's second season had cameos plugging four different new ABC shows. Both Milton Berle and Phyllis Diller appeared, though neither of their characters was connected to their actual show. However, one window cameo had Hornet and Kato (who apparently became villains months later, LOL), while another had Howard Duff as his character Sam Stone on Felony Squad.

On Mad Men (circa 1967), Don Draper's second wife either gets a role or is up for one on Dark Shadows. This episode (which doesn't mention DS by name, but it's pretty obvious) appeared at about the time the big-screen version came out, so I'm sure this was effectively product placement.

In another episode, Don Draper comes home in October 1968 and flips on a Dragnet episode where Joe Friday is hosting Bill Gannon and wife at his apartment. The fact that the Dragnet ep in question matches the time frame for the episode wasn't coincidence--Mad Men viewers were sticklers for spotting anachronisms and griping about it.

Antenna TV has a current promo commercial that shows some of their programs doing this, including Maude referencing The Partridge Family.

In the "Lisa the Psychologist" episode of "Green Acres", Lisa Douglas takes courses at a local college. When she finds out her class is in Room 221, she mentions she's only one room away from being on TV. That's a reference to the late 60s show "Room 222".

There's an episode of The Monkees where the boys join the circus. Mickey keeps trying to remember the theme song from Circus Boy. Mickey Dolenz was in both series.

The funniest scene of the entire Everwood series was from the first season. A bunch of people are convinced that aliens have landed. During a discussion of this at the Abbott dinner table, Bright (Chris Pratt) is playing with his mashed potatoes. You eventually realize that he is building Devil's Tower, like in Close Encounters.

In the Ashton Kutcher phase of "Two and a Half Men," there were a number of instances:

*Alan Harper's girlfriend, played by Courtney Thorne-Smith (who was on Melrose Place), explains that she appeared in a soft-core porn because the producer said he could get her a role on MP.

*She also shows up drunk at the house, potentially ruining an adoption, so Ashton Kutcher yells, "Charlie Sheen doesn't live here anymore."

*Alan is ready to go to a Halloween party as Ducky, the character from Pretty in Pink--a role player by Jon Cryer (aka Alan)

*The finale has plenty of references to the offscreen chaos involving Sheen.

The mentions of references to Dick Van Dyke on The Nanny made me remember there was an episode of Mad About You where Carl Reiner played Alan Brady bacause Paul was doing a special with him, and Paul and Jamie acted like Rob and Laura Petrie in parts of the episode.

Also in watching the St. Elsewhere episode on You Tube the next recommended video was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhCyXui0e_Q where some of the doctors from St. Elsewhere go to Cheers.

On Happy Days, “Mork from Ork” was sitting on the Cunninghams’ couch watching TV.

He said, “I like that boy, Opie. Why does an Earth boy have a Martian name, though?”

installLSC said:

In the "Lisa the Psychologist" episode of "Green Acres", Lisa Douglas takes courses at a local college. When she finds out her class is in Room 221, she mentions she's only one room away from being on TV. That's a reference to the late 60s show "Room 222".

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This episode was the last "real" episode of the series, since the final two shows were back-door pilots that failed.

All in the Family also indirectly mentioned Room 222 in the episode where Edith and Archie celebrate their 25th anniversary. Edith gets their original honeymoon room and asks Archie if Room 225 sounds familiar. He says something like, "That's that TV show, isn't it?"

A couple from Dick Van Dyke...One where the gang was in a courtroom and Sally mentioned it was like watching "The Defenders" without a TV set. On another episode, Rob was in a police lineup and the sergeant in charge asked him, "Number one, what's your name?", to which he replied, "My name is Robert Petrie". The sergeant then moved on, asking the next guy, "Number Two?" The obvious answer: "MY name is Robert Petrie".

newsmark said:

On Happy Days, “Mork from Ork” was sitting on the Cunninghams’ couch watching TV.

He said, “I like that boy, Opie. Why does an Earth boy have a Martian name, though?”

Click to expand...

Mork and Mindy was a spin-off from Happy Days, so Robin Williams appeared first in that show before Mork and Mindy hit the airwaves. I heard recently that Garry Marshall wanted to produce a sitcom about aliens because his son Scott (now a director and producer) was a Star Wars nerd-boy.

anotherguy said:

The mentions of references to Dick Van Dyke on The Nanny made me remember there was an episode of Mad About You where Carl Reiner played Alan Brady bacause Paul was doing a special with him, and Paul and Jamie acted like Rob and Laura Petrie in parts of the episode.

Also in watching the St. Elsewhere episode on You Tube the next recommended video was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhCyXui0e_Q where some of the doctors from St. Elsewhere go to Cheers.

Click to expand...

Not an allusion to a specific other show, but there is an episode of Coach in which Jerry Van Dyke's character attends a family reunion, and you briefly see Dick Van Dyke in the reunion scene, walking by the camera.

Concerning Coach: Larry, Darryl, and Darryl from Newhart were in the final episode. They were also in the reunion show of Newhart's 70's show that happened a year or two after Newhart ended.

the flintstones

I know The Flintstones was ALWAYS satirizing everything else, and wasn't realistic, but one episode was just plain surrealistic. I did not like "Sheriff for a Day" as a girl, but now as an adult I "get" it and it is one of my favorite episodes.
The Flintstones and Rubbles stop in an Old West town, unaware that its residents are terrified because its local bad guys have been released from prison and are heading back to get revenge on the sheriff. So the current sheriff, Craig, deputizes Fred and Barney, who then pretend to be Matt Dillon and Chester. Craig quietly leaves town. The Slatery brothers arrive and challenge Fred to a duel. The Cartrocks (Ben, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe) come to the rescue and scare the Slaterys away.
Wilma and Betty are thrilled, and tell the Cartrocks that they watch them on TV all the time. Then one of them (I think it was Ben) said that they had been watching The Flintstones on TV (I suppose live as it was happening!) and decided they should come and rescue them.
You figure it out.....

I ran into this a few days back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqqcBLP7rys

It's a spoof of shows the Flintstones might have watched if they had been around at that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtDYEkXwzVk

Mickey Mouse in a 2018 episode did a scene where references to the show Extreme Makeover:Home edition was used. Yes the one where there was tensions between Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse was included in the scene. In that scene Mickey Mouse was referring to tensions between the construction staff at Extreme Makeover: Home edition over deadlines to build a home and the Walking house had to be a reference to "Move that House"