In Popular Culture
- Bruce Springsteen refers to the song in his song, 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy). In the first verse, he sings, "As the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark."
- The track is featured on the video games Rock Band 2, Rock Band Unplugged and Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore 2, as well as on The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard.
- The videogame Peggle Nights also features this song as a parody.
- Spinball Whizzer (name based on Pinball Wizard) is located at Alton Towers Resort and plays 60s pop music in the queue.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Sweet and Sour Squidward", the song is parodied by Plankton and Squidward.
- The song is a part of the soundtrack for a pinball machine, The Party Zone
- A pinball machine of the same name and based on the Broadway musical of Townshend's rock opera was produced by Data East in the 1990s. It plays every song from the album during gameplay, performed by the original musical cast.
Read more about this topic: Pinball Wizard
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Insolent youth rides, now, in the whirlwind. For those modern iconoclasts who are without culture possess, apparently, all the courage.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)