List of allusions/Season 2

Scary-oke

 * The magazines in Stan's trunk (e.g., Fully Clothed Women) are a reference to adult magazines such as Playboy.
 * In Stan's contraband box is a Tamagotchi and a Street Sharks doll.
 * 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 and "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins.
 * MC Rapper is a parody of rapper MC Hammer.
 * Agent Powers' claim to have no sense of humor is allusion to Men in Black wherein Agent K makes a very similar claim.

Into the Bunker

 * When the Shape Shifter reveals itself, it extends its neck and climbs a wall in the same fashion as the monster in the 1982 film The Thing.
 * Using the symbol substitution cipher, one of the journal's pages says "ICE" "ICE" "BABY", which is a reference to a famous hip hop song from 1990, "Ice Ice Baby" by rapper Vanilla Ice.
 * The episode resembles Stephen King's It, which also featured a close-knit group battling a shape shifting evil in a subterranean setting.  The Shape Shifter in the episode assumes a giant spider form multiple times-- like Its final form-- and appears to take similar pleasure in psychological torment of its nemeses.
 * Smez is a spoof of Pez candy.
 * Just before the Shape Shifter reveals itself, its eyes are shown blinking sideways. This is in reference to the unlicensed cephalopoid from Men in Black (1997) blinking its gills because it was out of breath.

The Golf War

 * The title "The Golf War" is a play on words referencing the Gulf War from 1990-91.
 * "Wieners" is a reference to lewd graffitis made by thugs.
 * One of the obstacles at Gravity Falls 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.
 * Big Henry may be either or both: a reference to the character from American folklore known as John Henry, who was a miner who died while constructing a railroad tunnel, or Big Bad John, a song originally performed in 1961 by Jimmy Dean regarding a man who gives his life to save his fellow miners following a tunnel collapse.
 * Some elements of the episode are similar to The Simpsons episode "Dead Putting Society ", in which Bart Simpson enters a mini-golf competition with Todd Flanders at a medieval-themed golf course.

Sock Opera

 * The title is a play on rock operas.
 * Gabe claiming to be The Master of Puppets is a reference to the song with the same name by Metallica.
 * The screaming head that Bill conjures is based on Khal Drogo from HBO's Game of Thrones.
 * Dipper/Bill's preacher outfit is based on the character Harry Powell in The Night of the Hunter.
 * Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" is heard when the Grunkle Stan puppet flies in slow motion.
 * The Grunkle Stan and Old Man McGucket puppets in the balcony during the credits are modeled after Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show.
 * The scene where Dipper wakes up from his first meeting with Bill and flails his arm in a panic is an allusion to Kermit the Frog.
 * The same for Dipper's angry face as a puppet when speaking to Mabel, who finds the expression hilarious.
 * 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 from the 1980s and 1990s:
 * A picture of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
 * A Stretch Armstrong doll.
 * A Furby doll.
 * A Nintendo 64 console.
 * 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.
 * The song during the credits is sung in the style of Lil' Jon.
 * The cryptogram at the end slide is a parody of the Sailor Moon theme song.
 * The cardboard cutout that Soos knocks over is a parody of Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider series.
 * One game in the video game store is called NORT, which is TRON backwards, a reference to the movie about characters trapped in a video game world.
 * 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 appears to be 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.
 * The ending credits sequence is a reference to the film The Hangover.

Little Gift Shop of Horrors

 * The title is a parody of Little Shop of Horrors.
 * The three-story Halloween special format is notably used by The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror episodes.
 * This format was also used in the Phineas and Ferb episode Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror.