Histeria! - Cameos and Cultural References

Cameos and Cultural References

An integral part of the program was its use of popular culture to demonstrate historical events. Among the numerous pop culture references the show used during its run:

• The Looney Tunes characters made occasional cameos
• In "The Wild West", Father Time is shown watching Animaniacs on TV. Also, in "Really Oldies But Goodies", the kids sing to the Animaniacs theme tune when introducing Alexander the Great, and the Pinky and the Brain theme music can be heard during an offscreen mummification, specifically at the point mentioning the removal of the brain.
• An episode spoofs the Justice League with Franklin D. Roosevelt as Batman and Truman—played by Loud Kiddington—as Robin. Eleanor Roosevelt appeared as Wonder Woman, Winston Churchill as Superman, and Joseph Stalin appears as Blanka.
• Superman makes cameo appearances in "The Inventors Hall of Fame - Part 1" and "When Time Collides!"
• The Siege of Yorktown is covered like the Super Bowl, including commentary by John Madden.
• Washington's crossing of the Delaware River is told as a poem to the tune of The Night Before Christmas.
• In the episode "The Russian Revolution", Pepper Mills confused Lenin with famous singer and Beatle John Lennon, and made a joke about Beatle Ringo Starr. Additionally, Karl Marx is portrayed as a lampoon of Groucho Marx.
• A song about William Howard Taft is sung to the tune of the Theme from Shaft.
• A musical number about Theodore Roosevelt and his anti-trust campaign was sung to the theme of Ghostbusters. Roosevelt was depicted as a 'Trust-Buster'—complete with tan flight suit and proton pack—busting various analogies for trusts, including giant piggy banks and J. P. Morgan.
• The show's theme music is the march, Manhattan Beach, by John Philip Sousa.
• Occasionally, the show's theme song is replaced by a parody of the theme song to another television show. Among those are the intros to Saturday Night Live, The Addams Family, The Simpsons and Mister Ed.
• Loud Kiddington once spoofed Green Eggs and Ham with George H. W. Bush who famously announced he did not like broccoli. In this sketch, Loud chases Bush with a plate a broccoli while trying to convince him to eat it.
• In "The Renaissance" episode, Leonardo da Vinci spoofs the 1960s Batman series under the alias "Renaissance Man".
• At the end of a sketch debating their existence, King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad opt to retreat, shouting out "Run away!" like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A sketch based on the Boston Tea Party borrows wholesale from the Cheese Shop sketch from an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• In "The Russian Revolution", Charlie Chaplin makes a brief cameo appearance in the black and white film example as his signature character The Tramp. However, he is holding a bumbershoot instead of a cane.
• In a bit about Lewis and Clark, Clark Kent makes an appearance as Clark (but sounds like Dean Martin), and the character of Lewis is modeled after comedian Jerry Lewis. In the same episode, the film Deliverance is also parodied.
• In "The American Revolution of Abe Lincoln," Abraham Lincoln spoofs the show Seinfeld called Abe-Feld with Allan Pinkerton as Cosmo Kramer, George B. McClellan as George Costanza, and Jefferson Davis as Newman.
• In "Hooray for Presidents", the song about Bill Clinton and how he became president was to the theme of The Beverly Hillbillies. In the same episode, there was a sketch about the Lincoln Bedroom that had several celebrity cameos from Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Bill Cosby, Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, Christopher Walken, Clint Eastwood, Ted Turner, and Bill Clinton.
• The episode "General Sherman's Campsite" is a parody of Pee-wee's Playhouse.
• Larry King Live was spoofed as Barry Ding Live, complete with appearances by Kato Kaelin.
• Julius Caesar is depicted as Frank Sinatra, accompanied by Dean Martin as Mark Antony and Sammy Davis, Jr. as Gaius Cassius Longinus.
• Christopher Walken reappears in another episode, where physicist and inventor Nikola Tesla is depicted as Johnny Smith, Walken's character from The Dead Zone.
• One of the Civil War episodes pitted Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and General Sherman against Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson on a gameshow parody of Family Feud to find out the reason behind the civil war.