Charlie Don't Surf!

I take way too much pleasure in spotting pop culture references. Just ask Vicki, if you don't believe me. I've been known to pause movies or TV shows just to point one out. And there're famous - in our house, anyway - incidents like noticing that Requiem For A Dream has a visual homage to Dark City in it that show just how much brain power I waste on this. It's probably the fact that I have a reasonably good memory for trivia that makes me appreciate many of the little bits that writers of movies, TV shows, and comics will slip into their work. Of course, sometimes it works, and sometimes not so much.

I was reading The Incredible Hulk # 100 yesterday and came across a scene where Greenskin is fighting against a bunch of alien invaders called spikes (because of their appearance). After unleashing a torrent of lava in their direction, the Jade Giant lets out a bellowing cry to his companions that he's got the situation under control because "... Spikes Don't Surf!" And I'm thinking, how many readers of that title would really get that? I mean, if you hadn't watched Apocalypse Now at least once, wouldn't you be left to think that the Hulk was making no sense whatsoever? After all, even if spikes could surf, would they have boards? And wouldn't lava melt the boards? :-) So does it work? It did for me, but maybe it was too obscure for most readers? I don't know. I certainly laughed out loud!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV show, is full of pop references, almost to the point of getting in the way of being able to enjoy some episodes. Most of the time, though, it adds to my enjoyment of the show. And of course certain satirical movies, like the Scary Movie franchise, are all about that sort of thing, albeit fairly heavy-handedly.

I tend to prefer getting my doses of PopCultRef unexpectedly, though, like what happened in that issue of The Incredible Hulk, rather than as a steady diet, but that's just me.