The Raven in Popular Culture - Television

Television

• The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror" parodies the poem in its third segment as Lisa reads the story to Bart and Maggie. In the animated segment, Homer serves as the protagonist, Bart takes the raven's form, Marge appears in a painting as Lenore and Lisa and Maggie are angels. Bart complains that the poem is not scary, and at one point the raven says his catchphrase "Eat my shorts" instead of "Nevermore." Homer provides the spoken dialogue for the narrator, while James Earl Jones voices his thoughts. Much of the story is cut for time for this segment. The story culminates (after the last two lines of stanza 17 are repeated again) with Homer chasing the Bart-raven around the study before the last stanza (before said last stanza is told, the Bart-raven drops books of other stories by Poe onto Homer). Poe and "The Raven" are also referenced in "The Simpsons" episode "Saturdays of Thunder", when Dr Nick Riviera appears in an infomercial spruiking a cleaning product that will clean dirty grave stones. Troy McClure responds to Riviera with: "Quoth the raven, 'What a shine'."
• Night Gallery, hosted by Rod Serling, featured a brief, humorous story entitled "Quoth the Raven." It featured Poe, portrayed by Marty Allen, being constantly maligned by a talking raven (voiced by uncredited Mel Blanc) on a bust of Pallas as Poe is trying to write the original "Raven" poem.
• Garfield and Friends parodied the poem in the form of a U.S. Acres short titled "Stark Raven Mad", in which Orson narrates, to the tune of the poem, guarding the harvest against Roy's attempts to steal it.
• The Histeria! episode "Super Writers" featured a sketch in which a Peter Lorre-esque Poe attempts to pitch his poem to Sammy Melman, who wants a brighter poem with a happy narrator and a bunny instead of a raven. This frustrates Poe to no end and eventually drives him to publish the poem independently. Later in the episode, in a sketch featuring Poe as a villain, the raven serves as his sidekick.
• Tiny Toon Adventures parodies the poem, with the character Sweetie Pie playing the role of the raven while Vincent Price does the voice-over for the narrator.
• The Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain episode "The Ravin!" parodies the poem, with the Brain narrating and Elmyra using a phrase repetitively.
• In the TV show The Addams Family, Morticia uses "The Raven" as a bed-time story to her son Pugsley, reciting it as a nursery rhyme. (Episode 1.2 "Morticia and the Psychiatrist", original air date: 25 September 1964)
• The 1960s sitcom The Munsters featured a cuckoo clock with a wise-cracking raven (who had named himself "Charlie") instead of a cuckoo, which would emerge and say, "Nevermore, Nevermore" - usually as a comic foil for Herman Munster.
• The animated series Beetlejuice featured Poe as one of the eccentric residents of the Nietherworld.
• An episode of Teen Titans entitled "Nevermore" follows two of the main characters, Beast Boy and Cyborg, as they use a magical mirror to enter the mind of their friend Raven.
• In the Gilmore Girls episode, "A Tale of Poes and Fire," "The Raven" is recited by two men dressed like Edgar Allan Poe for a Poe convention.
• In episode 3 of season 4 of Alton Brown's Good Eats ("Fry Hard II: The Chicken") on Food Network, Brown's prologue to the episode shows him rummaging through his cookbooks ("forgotten lore") looking for chicken recipes accompanied by a voice-over of him reciting a parody of the first few stanzas of the poem, during which a plastic chicken, taking the raven's place, perched on the bust of Julia Child and repeatedly says "Fry some more".
• The DuckTales character Poe De Spell is a raven who often says "nevermore".
• The Muppet Babies episode "Quoth the Weirdo" is featured around poetry. Gonzo found much appeal in the spooky atmosphere of "The Raven".
• The Gothic cartoon series Ruby Gloom based on the apparel franchise of the same name features three ravens named Edgar, Allan and Poe, with Poe being the most prominent.
• In one episode of "Bullwinkle's Corner" from The Bullwinkle Show, the poem parodied is "The Raven". The bird which comes into Bullwinkle's "chamber spooky" is a woodpecker instead of the expected raven. Bullwinkle pursues the imposter bird with a fireplace poker and ends up hitting himself on the head. The narration concludes "Now the room is round me wavin'/ feels like I've been in a cave-in/ When will next I read "The Raven"?/I can tell you...nevermore!"
• In the 11th episode (called 'Nevermore) of television series Warehouse 13, many Poe poems feature, including The Tell-Tale Heart and, of course, 'The Raven'.