TV
Television was invented later than Conan Doyle's original writing, but the strength of Holmes has ensured that he has been referenced, or appeared in on TV in new forms. Naturally the original books have also been dramatised, notably the Granada Television adaptation.
Cartoons were quick to pick up on the potential, so Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty appear in both the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series, in the 1987 episode "Elementary, My Dear Turtle" and in the The Real Ghostbusters episode entitled "Elementary, My Dear Winston", in which Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty are literally brought to life by a strong belief held in them by the world's population. Though not ghosts, they do not have physical bodies. The timing of both this episode and the above Ninja Turtles example may have been a factor in the brand war in which the two series were engaged, and alludes to the cultural power of Holmes as a character.
Even CSI got in the act, with a story entitled "Who Shot Sherlock?", where the crime scene investigators solve the murder case of a man who plays Holmes in a re-enactment club devoted to the character. Such references are not so overt however, and the medical drama House makes much of the fact that the protagonist, a brilliant doctor solving medical mysteries of his patients, has a drug addiction, a man named Moriarty shoots House in the second season, the name Adler appears frequently through the series, has a similar name to Holmes and that he lives at apartment 221B.
On Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode, "Trials of the Demon!" Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson appeared to meet Batman that Sherlock finished Jason Blood's magic spell that brought Batman to 19th century after the mob put Jason Blood a.k.a. Etrigan on the blame of "missing souls" of the women. After the rescue of Jason Blood, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Batman and Etrigan hunt for Gentleman Ghost who was responsibility for missing souls. At first, Dr. Watson suggests that maybe James Moriarty is responsible.
In the Prison Break (season 4) episode entitled, Eagles & Angels (Prison Break), Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell pretends to be Cole Pfeiffer, a top salesman for a corporation called GATE. He is assigned a corner office with the room numbered 122B. The numbers 122 are the reverse of 221, a sly reference by the episode's screenwriters to T-Bag's Holmesian powers of reasoning and deduction, yet whose powers have been twisted and corrupted toward evil ends. Ultimately, T-Bag is a cleverly created anti-Sherlock Holmes, a stock character whose personality is shaped (in certain key facets) to be the polar opposite of Holmes. Indeed, T-Bag is a modern-day descendant not of Holmes, but of Holmes archnemesis Professor Moriarty.
On 7 October 2010, a Japanese anime began airing called "Tantei Opera Milky Holmes" about a girl named Sherlock "Sherly" Holmes and her 3 friends, who are based on other famous detectives, and how they retrieve their toys, or special powers, as they attend a detective academy. The anime has spawned a video game, trading card game, and a manga.
On 15 April 2011, a Japanese anime called "Hidan no Aria", produced by J.C. Staff, began airing. The story is about a girl named Kanzaki Holmes Aria, also known as Holmes the IV needs to work together with Kinji Toyama to solve mysterious attacks lead by the Butei Killer, Rika Mine, who was then revealed to be Lupin the IV.
Read more about this topic: Popular Culture References To Sherlock Holmes