Shaun The Sheep - References To Popular Culture

References To Popular Culture

As with the series' parent show Wallace and Gromit, there are many allusions to scenes from movies such as Star Wars, The Lion King, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Matrix, and Pulp Fiction. These include:

• Shirley's training in the episode "Shape Up with Shaun" is based on the film Rocky.
• The paintings parodied in "Still Life" include the Mona Lisa and Constable's The Hay Wain.
• In "Buzz Off Bees", the Farmer appears in his hooded beekeepers outfit, with accompanying Darth Vader-style heavy breathing.
• The infamous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is spoofed in the episode "The Little Sheep of Horrors", whose name is based on the 1960 film The Little Shop of Horrors and its 1986 remake.
• In "Hiccups", Shaun turns his guitar amplifier up to 11 in a reference to a scene in This Is Spinal Tap.
• In "Fleeced", the Farmer drags one of the sheep away for shearing, slamming a large metal sliding door closed behind him. This is particularly reminiscent of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
  • Also in "Fleeced", the sheep breakout and accompanying music is very reminiscent of British World War II prisoner of war films (e.g., The Great Escape)
• In "Supersize Timmy", when Timmy ate a tomato he becomes big like King Kong. This is similar to the 1933 film King Kong and its 1976 and 2005 remakes.
• In "The Visitor", the alien thrashes his car with a tree branch in the same way as Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers.
  • Also in "The Visitor", the alien's space ship can use sheep dung as fuel, which resemble Nibbler's dark matter faeces in Futurama.
• In "Mountains out of Molehills" a sheep is reading a magazine called "Bleat", a spoof of celebrity gossip magazine "Heat".
  • Also in "Mountains out of Molehills" Shaun tries to catch the mole with a fishing rod and line. When the first "bite" is shown, the first two notes of the Jaws theme are played.
• Near the end of "Off the Baa", the well-known Nessun Dorma theme from Puccini's opera Turandot is used, which was the musical theme of the 1990 FIFA World Cup.
• At the end of "Mower Mouth" the shrubs are clearly reminiscent of those in Edward Scissorhands.
• In "Saturday Night Shaun" Shaun rips off his coat and tosses it away as he is dancing, only to have tossed back. This is reminiscent of the scene in the 1980 movie Airplane!, where Robert Hays tosses his white sport-coat away, only to have it tossed back in his face.
• in "Party Animals", one of the sheep is dressed as a crude version of a Dalek trying to get up some stairs but failing because of the suit.
• in "Zebra Ducks of the Serengeti", the Farmer's signpost over the gate falls over Bitzer - à la Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill Jr.
• in "An Ill Wind", towards the end of that episode, when the power supply to the farmhouse blows up (due to the wind turbine the Farmer had built to power the farm being thrown into a ludicrously fast speed by Shirley), the Farmer grabs an axe and chops his wind turbine in a similar fashion to The Shining (a further reference was that the Farmer had been watching TV at the time).
• in "Shaun Goes Old-School" one of the Nintendo Video shorts the theme and sound effects from the NES Game Super Mario Bros. are played while Shawn jumps and runs around like he was Mario
  • Also during the short the Pigs also throw out two barrels that Shawn jumps over that may be a reference to Mario's first appearance in Donkey Kong as Jumpman