List of allusions/Season 2

Scary-oke

 * Agent Powers' claim to have no sense of humor is an allusion to Men in Black, wherein Agent K says, "We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we're aware of."
 * A Tamagotchi and a Street Sharks doll are inside Stan's contraband box.
 * Two songs on Mabel's karaoke machine ("We Built This Township on Rock and Roll" and "Danger Lane to Highway Town") are references to "We Built this City" by Starship, "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins and "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC.
 * MC Rapper is a parody of rapper MC Hammer.
 * The song name "The Rapper's Rap" is an allusion to the first rap song ever written, "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang.
 * The magazines in Stan's trunk (e.g. "Fully Clothed Women") are a reference to adult magazines such as Playboy.
 * The show Soos was watching, "Gossiping Housewives," is a reference to the TV series Desperate Housewives.

Into the Bunker

 * Using the symbol substitution cipher, one of the journal's pages says "ICE" "ICE" "BABY," which is a famous hip hop song from 1990, "Ice Ice Baby" by rapper Vanilla Ice.
 * Smez is a spoof of Pez.
 * The Shape Shifter turns into Groot from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Golf War



 * The title "The Golf War" is a play on words referencing the Gulf War from 1990-91.
 * One of the obstacles at Ye Royal Discount Putt Hutt is a large shoe house, a reference to the nursery rhyme "There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe."
 * The Lilliputtians are a reference to the Lilliputians, a society of tiny people who inhabit the island of Lilliput (which represents the Kingdom of Great Britain) in Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels. Also, the way they tied up Pacifica was done in a similar manner to how Gulliver is tied up by the Lilliputians.
 * When the pirate Lilliputtians first appear, a tune very similar to the main theme of the Pirates of the Caribbean series plays.

Sock Opera

 * The title is a play on the phrase "rock opera."
 * The screaming head that Bill conjures is based on Khal Drogo from HBO's Game of Thrones.
 * The outfit Candy wears during the show is based off of the outfit worn by David Bowie during the music video for his song "Ziggy Stardust."
 * The preacher outfit that Bill wears is based on the character Harry Powell from The Night of the Hunter.
 * Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" is heard when the Stan puppet flies in slow motion.
 * The Stan and Old Man McGucket puppets in the balcony during the credits are modeled after Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show.
 * The cryptogram in the end credits references Reptilian conspiracies.

Soos and the Real Girl



 * The title is a spoof of the film Lars and the Real Girl.
 * A number of stores in the Gravity Falls Mall are parodies of popular stores:
 * The store in the mall, Build A Beaver, is a parody of Build-A-Bear Workshop.
 * The store Edgy On Purpose is a spoof on Hot Topic.
 * BeeblyBoop's Videogames' logo is an allusion to the GameStop logo.
 * Soos' bedroom has a number of items that reference toys and pop culture:
 * A picture of something resembling a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
 * A Stretch Armstrong doll.
 * A Furby doll.
 * A Godzilla action figure.
 * A Nintendo 64 console and controller.
 * A Magic 8-Ball.
 * Will E. Badger's name is a parody of Chuck E. Cheese's.
 * The Hoo-Ha's Jamboree animatronic band members are based off of the Rock-afire Explosion.
 * Stan saying "I'm gonna get that badger," is a reference to the famous, recurring line said by Elmer Fudd about Bugs Bunny: "I'm gonna get that wabbit (rabbit)."
 * The homicidal animatronics may be a reference to the game Five Nights at Freddy's
 * The song during the credits is sung in the style of Lil' Jon.
 * The cardboard cutout that Soos knocks over is a parody of Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series.
 * Soos' poster "HE'S GOT ATTI-CUBE" on the door of his room has a COOLCUBE logo at the top that is a cube made of C's, a parody of the Nintendo GameCube whose cube is made of G's. The running cube on the poster also resembles a Rubik's Cube and 7-Up's old mascot, Cool Spot.
 * The fact that Giffany killed her creators after becoming sentient is a nod to GLaDOS from the Portal series. Giffany's animation depicting a bunch of stick figures at computers greatly resembles similar animations played in Portal 2.
 * On Giffany's screen, the binary code means "SPACEJAMTWO." This is a reference to the film Space Jam and how it may be getting a sequel sometime soon.
 * Giffany's pesonality archetype is known as "Yandere."
 * When Soos mentioned that Giffany's father is the "octopus man," this is the reference to the tentacle Hentai.
 * Soos says he doesn't know whether to pronounce Giffany's name as "Giffany" with a hard G, or "Jiffany." This is a reference to the common internet dispute about whether "GIF," a file format, is pronounced with a hard or soft G.
 * The ending credits sequence is a reference to the film The Hangover.
 * The cryptogram at the end slide is a parody of the theme song of the DiC/CWi dub of the anime Sailor Moon. "WINNING HEARTS BY DAYLIGHT! / POSSESSING ROBOTS BY MOONLIGHT! / HER EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE IS A REAL FRIGHT! / SHE HAS THE ONE NAME GIFFANY." Similarly, the first four lines of the DiC/CWi's Sailor Moon theme song are "Fighting evil by moonlight / Winning love by daylight / Never running from a real fight! (or 'With her Sailor Scouts to help fight' in a later verse) / She is the one named Sailor Moon!"

Little Gift Shop of Horrors

 * The title is a parody of Little Shop of Horrors.
 * One item in the gift shop is a Palantír from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, in which the Eye of Sauron can be seen.
 * The title card for Hands Off is in the style of famous graphic designer Saul Bass.
 * The Hand Witch's robe is nearly identical to that of The Master from the movie Manos: The Hands of Fate.
 * The Hand Witch's chair resembles the iron throne from HBO's Game of Thrones.
 * Dipper helps hang a painting of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.
 * The What-the-heck-ahedron is a reference to 3D combination puzzles, like the Rubik's Cube.
 * "Loinclothiclese" searching for the "Golden Pants" is a reference to the myth of the Golden Fleece.
 * The movie "Honey, I Shrunk A Ghost" seen on top of the VCR is a reference to the 1989 film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
 * Harry Claymore's old gorilla model is a reference to King Kong.
 * Harry Claymore is based on real-life stop motion artist Ray Harryhausen and the claymation monsters (skeletons, cyclops, gorgons, etc.) are a reference to his films Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Clash of the Titans.
 * A poster in Harry Claymore's studio features a flying creature that resembles Rodan, a monster from Toho's Rodan and the Godzilla franchise.
 * When Soos turns into clay, he resembles iconic stop-motion character Gumby. He also says, "Holy toledo," which was the catchphrase of Gumby's pal, Pokey.

Society of the Blind Eye

 * The song Soos is listening to is by a rapper called Lil Bigg Dawggg, which could be an allusion to Lil Wayne, The Notorious B.I.G., and Snoop Dogg.
 * McGucket's middle name is a nod to the Large Hadron Collider.
 * The statue inside The Hall of the Forgotten looks very similar to the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro.
 * When Mabel and Wendy discuss Mabel's failed romances, a Triforce is visible on the wall.
 * The cryptogram on the journal page is a parody of the song "My Favorite Things" from the musical The Sound of Music.

Blendin's Game

 * The episode title is a reference to the book (and 2013 film) Ender's Game.
 * Some signs in the background in the future say "The Time Baby is Watching," a reference to George Orwell's book 1984, in which numerous signs say "Big Brother is watching".
 * Lolph and Dundgren are based on the actor Dolph Lundgren, and their uniforms are similar to the outfit worn by Lundgren's character Andrew Scott (aka GR13) in the film Universal Soldier.
 * Soos had a poster of Michael Jackson's 1988 film Moonwalker in his room as a child.
 * The water gun Robbie uses is a Super Soaker.
 * Some games of Globnar trials are references to: TRON (glowing cycle races), American Gladiators (the joust), Colosseum-style battling, parkour, Jenga, etc.
 * When Mabel thinks they are in Japan, this is a reference to the many TV shows similar to Globnar where teams are pitted against each other to earn points and prizes.
 * The cipher key "capacitor" is an allusion to the "flux capacitor," which made time travel possible in the Back to the Future movie trilogy.

The Love God

 * The name of the episode is an allusion to one of Don Knotts' movies, The Love God?
 * Woodstick is a parody of the music festival Woodstock.
 * The two artists listed before the Love God on Tambry's phone, Scarves Indoors and Wood Grain on Everything, reference trends in hipster subculture.
 * The Valentino Funeral Home doorbell is "Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565" by Johann Sebastian Bach.
 * One of the dolls used by Mabel to represent a "Maybe" for Robbie is a doll representing June from KaBLAM!
 * Woodstick artist parodies of real life indie artists:
 * "Dracula Weekday" = "Vampire Weekend"
 * "Lawrence + the Bicycles' = "Florence + the Machine"
 * "Boyz II Infantz" = "Boyz II Men"
 * "DJ OK" = "OK Go"
 * "Boston, Massachusetts" = "Boston"
 * The photo on Tambry's phone is an allusion to the popular duckface.
 * When Mabel talked with "that guy from the ten dollar bill," she was referring to Alexander Hamilton.
 * Tambry's text alert tone is the Bits & Bytes tone.

Northwest Mansion Mystery
The Shining.
 * The show "Ghost Harassers" is a reference to the movie Ghostbusters. Dipper also mentions "bust[ing] ghosts" several times in the episode.
 * Used to be About History Channel is a reference to the History Channel. The logo is also similar to the History Channel logo. The name is also a reference to how the channel very rarely runs any actual historical documentaries anymore.
 * The basketball player is a spoof of the Oregon Ducks, a college team for many sports.
 * In the scene where Dipper and Pacifica are hiding from the Lumberjack ghost, a painting is seen on the wall depicting a duck hunt. The way in which it is presented is an allusion to Nintendo's Duck Hunt from 1984.
 * When Dipper mentions the scale of ghosts' malevolence, he opens to a page with a childlike ghost designed very similarly to Casper the Friendly Ghost.
 * When Dipper is flipping through Journal 3, a page on Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street can be seen.
 * The scene where the lumberjack ghost is about to grab Pacifica from behind the curtain draped over the painting is a reference to a similar scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
 * One of the verses in the exorcism is "ain't afraidus no ghostus," which is reference to Ghostbusters theme, in which one of the lines is "I ain't afraid of no ghost."
 * Watching a portrait of a man and then re-watching it only to find that he's gone from the frame parallels a scene from the Scooby-Doo episode Haunted House Hang-Up, where the head of the man in the portrait is gone.

Not What He Seems

 * The reality TV show "Ker-Prank'd" is a reference to MTV's Punk'd.
 * Justin Kerprank, the host of "Ker-Prank'd," is based off of Ashton Kutcher, the original host of Punk'd.
 * One of Stan's aliases is "Alcatraz," which is the name of an infamous, retired island prison.
 * One of Stan's aliases is "Forrester" which is a reference to Game Of Thrones
 * When the timer is counting down, Soos says, "It's the final countdown! Just like they sung about," referring to the song "The Final Countdown" by Europe.
 * At the beginning of the episode, one of the special agents guys says something very similar to what Homer Simpson said in Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming. "Hey not in front of the special agents guys!"

A Tale of Two Stans

 * The title of this episode is a reference to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
 * The "Mothgar" poster in Stanley and Stanford's childhood room is based on the American theatrical poster for the 1961 film Mothra.
 * There is a poster in McGucket's old home, which shows a colorful, bitten-off strawberry similar to the Apple logo, and the words "Ponder alternatively," which is a play on Apple's slogan "Think differently."
 * Furthuring the Apple Computers / Fiddleford H. McGucket connection is the fact that his and Steve Jobs' houses are virtually identical.S2E12_McGucket_Steve_Jobs_House.jpg
 * The "Sham Total" is a parody of "Shamwow!".
 * One of Mabel's drawings reads "What Hath Science Wrought?" a reference to "What hath God wrought?" a phrase from the Book of Numbers.
 * College Ford was shown in learning progression montage. During that montage, two posters are shown on his dorm room wall. They are the iconic Nicola Tesla and Carl Sagan, two great thinkers and doers of recent history.
 * The magazine on Stanley's bed titled "Wuh?" is a reference to Mad Magazine. The person on the cover of the magazine is a reference to Alfred E. Neuman.
 * The time his car was grabbed by a giant arm is likely an allusion to the '90s movie the “iron giant”
 * Young Stan mentioned being infatuated with one "Jackie O", a reference to former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons

 * The title and the game in this episode is a parody of the popular role-playing game Dungeons &amp; Dragons.
 * Like D&D, Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons use an assortment of polyhedron dice.
 * The 38-sided die is based on, and resembles, the 20-sided icosahedron die used in Dungeons & Dragons to resolve most rolls. There are no 38-sided die used in any real life RPGs; the closest is a 30-sided die, but this an unusually rare and impractical type of die.
 * Dipper's mentioning Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons' '90s marketing campaign is a reference to how the company of D&D, TSR Inc., aggressively marketed D&D in '90s to keep up with the growth of other RPGs on the market, and many poor business decisions that drove TSR Inc. into bankruptcy.
 * When Stan swats a fairy on his back, she says "Hey! Look! Listen!" The line references Navi the fairy's frequently repeated vocalizations in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
 * Cheese Boodles are a play on works of the snack food Cheez Doodles.
 * FCLORP (Foam and Cardboard Legitimate Outdoor Role-Play) is similar to LARP (Live-Action Role-Playing); an offshoot of table-top role-playing that uses physical play instead of dice.
 * The Hot Elf is a reference to Legolas from the Lord of the Rings movies.
 * "We all know where we were when we learned Duck-tective was shot" is a reference to how people will say that they remember where they were when they heard that John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
 * The Hot Elf saying "Excelsi-whatever" is a reference to Stan Lee's "Excelsior!" line.
 * The fantasy names posted up on the boards in the living room by Dipper and Ford are all parodies of names from "The Flight of Dragons," an animated movie adaptation of Gordon R. Dickson's book "The Dragon and the George." (Jason Ritter's father, John Ritter, was the voice the protagonist, Peter Dickenson, in the movie.)
 * Gorbasch -- there's a human/dragon character named Gorbash in both the book and movie.
 * Smerghol -- Smrgol, another dragon from the movie adaptation.
 * Omhadawn -- the evil wizard Ommadon, from the movie adaptation.

The Stanchurian Candidate

 * The episode's title is a reference to the 1959 Richard Condon novel The Manchurian Candidate, which was adapted into a 1962 film and 2004 film of the same name.
 * Grunkle Stan's campagin slogan "Yes We Stan" parodies Barack Obama's 2008 tag "Yes We Can."