This is a list of references to 2001: A Space Odyssey in other media.
Advertising[]
- The IBM commercials.
Anime & Manga[]
Cowboy Bebop[]
- In the last scene of the episode "Toys in the Attic" the crew members of the Bebop appear floating asleep in near-zero gravity, along with objects, while the song "Waltz of the Flowers" plays, in resemblance to A Space Odyssey when "The Blue Danube" waltz is playing and Dr. Heywood Floyd was sleeping in his trip, while we see a pen floating.
DragonBall Z[]
Dr. Willow
- In the episode "A New Goal... Namek", the excavation team retrieving Nappa's pod recalls the excavation of the Tycho monolith.
- In the episode "Unexpected Problem", Goku is seen wearing a spacesuit in similar design to Dave Bowman.
- In the DBZ Movie "The World's Strongest", the villain Dr. Willow has a red eye like Hal.
- The scene which Piccolo enters the Big Gete Star in another DBZ movie "The Return of Cooler" resembles the star gate sequence.
Monster Rancher[]
- Monol obviously resembles a Monolith.
Neon Genesis Evangelion[]
Gendo Ikari at Seele's Council.
- In Seele's council, each of the 12 members is represented by a single black monolith with the words "SEELE (member number) SOUND ONLY" displayed on them.
Movies[]
200 Motels[]
- At the beginnig of the song "Penis Dimension" there is a moment when we see the real Monolith used for Kubrik's movie what was there in the set when Zappa's movie was rolled.
A Clockwork Orange[]
- When Alex is in the record store, we can see the soundtrack to 2001 on a lower shelf with "Atom Heart Mother" above it.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory[]
- When Charlie looks at the gorilla's jumping around a chocolate bar in a television screen, the scene is composed to mimic the obelisk scene in 2001.
Mission to Mars[]
- The Mars II spaceship almost resembles the Discovery 1, which has a computer with a voice. The film even ends with the astronauts discovering aliens (the Martians) jumpstarted evolution on Earth, and one of them joins the aliens.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace[]
- An EVA Pod is visible among the junk in the yard of Watto's shop as Qui-Gon Jinn attempts to purchase a T-14 hyperdrive generator. Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Episode I notes this object is "a repair and maintenance pod of unknown origin".
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith[]
- In the DVD commentary, John Knoll explains that George Lucas specifically designed the look of Polis Massa to be an homage to the look of the Clavius Base.
Robots[]
- During a heated chase scene, protagonist, Rodney Copperbottom is fixing his childhood hero, Bigweld. During the repair, Bigweld voice goes deep like when Commander David Bowman disconnects the HAL 9000's circuits. Bigweld also so says, "Daisy. Daisy. Give me your answer..." before going back to normal.
The Martian[]
- The Hermes spacecraft has a triple-dish like the Discovery 1.
The Nightmare Before Christmas[]
- Jack Skellington experiments, The Scientific Method of "Jack and Sally Montage".
Zoolander[]
- The two main male models attempt to get files from a computer while the 2001 music plays. They beat the computer with a bone and hop around like apes.
The Mitchells vs. The Machines[]
- The main antagonist's name, PAL, is a reference to HAL 9000 and Dr. Mark Bowman, which is the founder of PAL Labs, is a parody of David Bowman.
Music[]
- At the final scene in the music video of "Play", Jennifer Lopez asked the DJ (who takes the avatar of an iris that resembles Hal) to play her favorite song. Amusingly enough, the song was released in 2001.
- The band Rosetta has recorded an instrumental song titled TMA-1. Also, on the album The Galilean Satellites, the monolith is referred to several times in the lyrics.
- In Epic Rap Battles of History - "Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs", at the end HAL 9000 appears and raps vs them while using some reference such as "I afraid I can't let you do that, Bill" and also says he can sing them a song about Daisy.
- The intro to track Perfect Sense Part I by Roger Waters is borrowed from the scene from 2001 where HAL tries to convince Dave against disabling the logic and memory unit. The tribute is also noticeable in the lyrics of the track "The monkey sat on a pile of stones...The monkey looked up at the stars".
- The 2015 music video for "DOOM DADA" by Big Bang (South Korean band) features apes discovering a microphone in a pile of bones, paying a homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey intro scene.
- The music video of "Lies" by the Thompson Twins takes place in a room similar to Bowman's bedroom. There was even what appears to be a black monolith in the background.
Television[]
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.[]
- In "4,722 Hours", the crew were sent to a mysterious planet through an artifact also called a Monolith in 2001.
Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse[]
- In Season 2 episode 2 ("Closet Princess 2.0") seen here, Barbie's home is taken over by her fashion computer system, a parody of HAL
Doctor Who[]
- In Series 7, Episode 2 ("Dinosaurs on a Spaceship"), the Doctor deactivates Solomon's robots. As the robots are deactivated, they sing the song "Daisy, Daisy" just as HAL does as it loses consciousness.
Community[]
- In Season 3 episode 1, Jeff is knocked out by monkey gas and has a hallucination similar to the 4th act starting with the color-filtered blinking. He sees himself aging and turning into Pierce. In place of the monolith, is the study room table.
Futurama[]
- Season 4 episode 3 ("Love and Rocket") - Bender starts dating the Planet Express ship's newly installed computer system, a parody of HAL. Bender gets bored with the ship and starts "cheating" with his floozies and the ship takes it out on Bender and the crew in a very self-serving way.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic[]
- In "Suited for Success", the musical opening of Rarity's second fashion show bears striking resemblance to Thus Spake Zarathustra.
- In "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", the music that plays when Rarity discovers the giant boulder full of gems also bears resemblance to Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Phineas & Ferb[]
- The episode "Mommy Can You Hear Me?" includes a transition from a bone tossed in the air to a space station, the use of The Blue Danube as background music, the wormhole sequence, the white-lettered black background title card, and the entire ending scene.
- The orange space suits Phineas and Ferb wore in "Out to Launch" are likely influenced by the Space Suits.
- During the song in the episode "Moon Farm", the various lights flashing by Isabella is a reference to the famous "Star Gate" scene.
- In "Hide and Seek", the glowing red eye in a black orb resembles HAL.
- Phineas and Ferb's supercomputer in "Ask a Foolish Question" speaks with a voice that sounds very similar to the HAL-9000 computer.
- The sentient tower in "Escape from Phineas Tower" is inspired by the HAL 9000.
- In "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo", at the end of the archival footage as Emperor Doofenshmirtz's image is shown, he sings the opening notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra.
- In "Phineas and Ferb Hawaiian Vacation", the crabs worshiping the De-evolution-inator resembles the opening scene of this film, in which apes worship a mysterious monolith. Doofenshmirtz points out the "Kubricky" resemblance, in reference to the film's director Stanley Kubrick.
- At one point in "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama!" Irving, as well as Candace, is heard humming Also Sprach Zarathustra.
The PJs[]
- In House Potty episode, a robot toilet resembles HAL 9000.
Recess[]
- The episode "Schoolworld" features a parody of Hal called SAL 3000 (likely also named after SAL 9000). Like with Hal, it started out friendly until it breaks down and begins taking over the school, leading the students to deactivate it. The episode even begins with the "Dawn of Man" sequence.
Teen Titans Go[]
- In the episode "Tower Power", Cyborg becomes more robotic as a result of connecting to the tower's systems, giving him a strong resemblance to the actions of HAL 9000. The TV that is used to see his face zooms in on his robot eye and once close up shows details such as a centered red glow which reveals the reference. He also uses a slightly altered version of the famous quote from HAL, "I'm sorry, I can't let you do that."
Electric Company[]
- The "monolith" cartoon series from the show used white versions of the monolith, that crumbled apart to expose letter clusters and dipthongs, subsequently pronounced by a deistic voice (e.g. "oo", "ee", "ow", "all", "alk", et. al.).
Simpsons[]
- The Dawn of Man scene is featured in the Season 3 episode "Lisa's Pony" with one of the man-apes resembling Homer Simpson, who leans on the Monolith to sleep. According to the DVD commentary, while the other man-apes discovered tools, the Homer ape invented slacking off.
- In "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?", Homer's fantasy while on the massage chair is reminiscent of the 'star gate' sequence.
- In "Maximum Homerdrive", the Autodrive system has a computer voice that sounds like Hal, "I'm afraid I can't let you do this, Red. The risk is unacceptable." It injects itself after learning his original driver is dead.
- In "Treehouse of Horror XII", The Ultrahouse 3000 camera eyes resemble the HAL 9000 computer. The Ultrahouse suggests that Marge take a stress pill. HAL 9000 makes the same suggestion to astronaut David Bowman in 2001. Homer disables the Ultrahouse by removing the circuit boards from its CPU, and while he does so, the Ultrahouse's voice becomes less sophisticated, then slow and garbled, and finally stops. The same thing happens to HAL 9000 at the hands of David Bowman.
- In “Deep Space Homer”, Homer eats potato chips to the tune of The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II, which is featured in the film. Homer’s approach to one ruffled chip even somewhat resembles the Pan Am spacecraft docking with the space station. Then at the end of that episode Bart throws up a marker similar to the end of the Dawn of Man sequence when an ancient ape throws up their bone. And just as that shot changes from the bone to a similarly shaped spacecraft, Bart’s marker becomes a Fox TV satellite which hits an embryonic Homer on the head, reminiscent of the final scene of the film, in the head to the melody of Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss which is also featured in the film. In an earlier scene where the characters watch a space-related Itchy & Scratchy short, Itchy pilots a pod similar to the ones from the film.
T.U.F.F. Puppy[]
- In the episode "Toast of TUFF", as Keswick makes a toaster called R.I.T.A. that takes over the T.U.F.F. HQ's electronic mainframe is similar to H.A.L. taking over the ship.
Veggietales[]
- In the video "Veggies in Space : the Fennel Fronteir" a Hal type computer called Pal needs new batteries because his are dying, but no one wants to share them, thankfully.
- Another scene Larry has Larry envisioning a chocolate bar floating in space and then on a planet with monkeys spoofing the dawn of man scene and then with him playing the Blue Danbue on the drums while a baby version of him in a bubble floats in space refrencing the star child.
Video games[]
Tributes to Monoliths have appeared in several video games.
- In SimEarth and Spore, Monoliths are used to encourage the evolution of species.
- A Monolith also briefly appears in the game Bookworm Adventures 2 as a boss enemy known as the Monolithic Obelisk.
- In the game EVE Online several Monoliths appear through out the game. They appear to have no use other than homage.
- The Monolith, an enemy faction featured in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, that worship an object that is supposedly from outer space. It is claimed to hold the power to grant wishes.
- In the video game Metal Gear Solid, one of the endings features dialogue between main character Snake and his friend Otacon, when they both reveal their names Dave and Hal, Dave says "Hal and Dave... That's a good one. Maybe we should take a trip to Jupiter."
- In the video game Portal, the main enemy (GLaDOS) acts much like HAL 9000 did. (SPOILERS AHEAD FOR PORTAL) In the beginning, she seemed like your friend. As time went on, she started acting stranger. Eventually, she tries to kill you. When you are trying to find her, she tries to tell you that she was joking and that she changed. When you do fight her, the design of her head is similar to HAL 9000 with a white board and a yellow eye.
- In Kerbal Space Program, many easter eggs featured in the game are black Monoliths with the developper's logo, Squad, sculpted in the front.
- In Mass Effect 2, when EDI (an AI) suggests giving her control of the ship to escape the Collectors, Joker tells her "If you start singing 'Daisy Bell' I'm done!".
- Xenogears and Xenosaga feature a golden monolith called the Zohar. The Zohar is a key element in those games, both Zohars were found on earth and have mysterious origins, both of them allowed contact with an extremly powerful being which granted extreme powers to those who make contact with it . The Zohar is a direct reference to the Monolith in 2001 both having a similar appearance, both having a mystical connotation and each granting mysterious effects on the ones who make contact. Additionally the company who made these games is called Monolith Software and the director and writer Tetsuya Takahashi stated that 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of his main sources of inspiration.
- In Xenoblade Chronicles X (Monolith Software) the opening shot is the exact same as the opening shot in 2001: A Space Odyssey.