List of cultural references to Apocalypse Now

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This is a list of cultural references to the 1979 film Apocalypse Now.

Contents

[edit] Film

  • Martin Sheen's son Charlie Sheen parodied his father's greatest role in Hot Shots! Part Deux. Charlie (giving the voice over from Platoon's opening narration) floats down a river. Suddenly he passes Martin (dressed in his Apocalypse Now clothes), going the opposite direction on the Apocalypse Now PBR. As their boats cross paths, father and son stand, point, and yell in unison at each other "I loved you in Wall Street!", praising each other's work in that film (in which they both starred).
  • The Chase, after the final credits, shows Charlie Sheen, in a clown suit, sitting behind the wheel of the car and reciting Kilgore's "napalm" speech.IMDB
  • The film Major Payne features a parody of Willard's first scene, with Major Payne losing his mind in a hotel room while the 'enemy gets stronger'. He then roasts a rat over a small fire.
  • In the film Jarhead, the Marines watch the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene of Apocalypse Now shortly before leaving for Iraq.
  • In the film The Beach, Leonardo Dicaprio's character bore significant resemblance to Kurtz when he went insane, surrendered his morality, and manifested himself into a primitive war god to fight-off opposing gunman farmers.
  • Garfield said "I love the smell of apple pies in the morning. Smells like victory" in Garfield: The Movie, after successfully stealing an apple pie from a neighbor's house. This is an obvious play on Apocalypse Now's classic line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."
  • In The Lion King, Timon, during the final fight with the hyenas, uses the line, "I love the smell of Pumbaa in the morning," a reference to Duvall's famous line.
  • In the film Freddy Got Fingered, Tom Green's character in the film has trouble writing a new cartoon. The scene shows shots of the fan blade's silhouettes, as well as Green smashing a mirror. The scene is mocking the opening scene of Apocalypse Now. Tom Green even admits to ripping off the scene in the commentary of the film on the DVD.
  • A short film spoof called Porklips Now (1980) involving a health inspector named Will Dullard travelling "uptown" to meet with an owner of a meat processing shop named Mertz.

[edit] Television

[edit] The Simpsons

  • The episode "I Love Lisa" features Principal Skinner having a flashback to Vietnam going up river in a patrol boat similar to the film. There's a picture of Marlon Brando as Kurtz, as well as two other crew members who look like Chef and Mr. Clean.
  • The episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" features Montgomery Burns outsourcing the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant to India, where Burns eventually turns over control of the plant to Homer. Soon afterwards, Homer takes up a role similar to that of Colonel Kurtz, and Burns, Smithers and the rest of the Simpson family have to travel by boat up a river to retrieve him.
  • In the episode "Team Homer", Principal Skinner (himself a Vietnam veteran) speaks about his time in Da Nang with the shadow of blinds across his face à la Willard in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now.
  • In the episode "Mother Simpson," where Homer is reunited with his mother, albeit only for at brief period of time, Montgomery Burns and some police surround the Simpson house. Mr. Burns, sitting in a tank and leading the attack, starts playing a tape. The tank has large speakers, similar to those on the helicopters in Apocalypse Now. 'Ride of the Valkyries' begins to play, but then there is a scratching noise followed by the song "Waterloo" by ABBA which Smithers had recorded over the original song.
  • In the episode Homer to the Max, Homer complains that a once heroic television character sharing his name is now a completely different character. Marge tries to comfort him by pointing out that the same thing happened with Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now.
  • In the episode Kamp Krusty, Bart and Lisa attend Krusty the Clown's summer camp, only to rebel against the harsh conditions and overthrow the counselours. Bart becomes leader and is shown to rule much like Kurtz, and is later interviewed by Kent Brockman, echoing Dennis Hopper's role.

[edit] Seinfeld

  • Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up routine in the opening of the Seinfeld episode "The Boyfriend Part 2" includes the quote "I love the smell of cardboard in the morning."
  • In the Seinfeld episode 142 "The Chicken Roaster," Elaine goes to visit Mr. Peterman in Myanmar (Burma). When she arrives, Mr. Peterman is sitting in shadow and, while squeezing water onto his neck from a rag, asks if she is an assassin. The scene then continues to follow Willard's first meeting with Kurtz.

[edit] Saturday Night Live

  • In an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Martin Sheen, a parody of Apocalypse Now was performed with Sheen playing a studio executive being sent to the Philippines to shut down the film's production.
  • SNL Fun with Real Audio, John McCain struggles with endorsing George W. Bush and goes mad in a fashion that parodies the opening scene of Apocalypse Now (dancing naked and punching the mirror while The End plays).

[edit] Other TV

  • A third season episode of seaQuest 2032 entitled "Chains of Command" deals with Captain Oliver Hudson being sent on a mission to relieve his former commander, Admiral Vanalden, who has gone insane and launched a first strike against Macronesia with the intent of plunging the world into nuclear war.
  • On a fifth season episode of Mythbusters, host Jamie Hyneman tells co-host Adam Savage, "I love the smell of thermite in the afternoon."
  • A fourth season episode of Angel (TV series) is named "Apocalypse, Nowish".
  • The X-Files episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" contains a sequence that is modeled after Captain Willard's briefing near the beginning of the film.
  • The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert, once did a special report where he was sent to a mock war scenario for the press. The piece is entitled "Full Metal Junket," but features much of the dialogue from Apocalypse Now including the line, "The horror, the horror. Where did I park my Volvo?"
  • The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Restless" features a dream sequence in which Xander relives the film with his high school principal in the place of Kurtz.
  • In the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "The Furies", Xena, a bit high by the Furies' curse, sniffs her own armpits and says: "I love the smell of warrior sweat in the morning."
  • The Xena: Warrior Princess episode "The Debt-Part I", Xena, emerges from the river with a mud covered face rising from the water with her hair slicked back to assasinate the Chinese lord Ming T'ien resembling Captain Willard's approach to assasinate Colonel Kurtz.
  • The episode "Murdering Outside the Box" from the Cartoon Network show Metalocalypse features a government killer named '2-16' patterned after Cpt. Willard. When 2-16 enters the grounds of 'Mordhaus' (the home of the band), he dramatically rises from a pool of water, a direct reference to the film.
  • The Animaniacs episode "Hearts of Twilight," in which the Warner brothers and their sister Dot are sent out to the far edge of the studio lot to stop a rogue director (a caricature of Jerry Lewis whose film is millions of dollars overbudget, in a spoof of/reference to both Apocalypse Now and its plagued production. The episode even featured a Jim Morrison imitator being run over as he sang a parody of "The End".
  • An episode of the Fox Kids TV series Eek the Cat was a satire of the film, with Eek going on a river trip to find Sharky, who has gone rogue similar to Kurtz.
  • Duckman features several references to the movie which occur fairly frequently.
  • Roseanne had an episode loosely based on the film which focused on Dan dealing with his wife's PMS during his birthday.
  • On Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, there is an episode entitled "Adoptcalyspe Now".
  • An episode of Dexter's Laboratory starts with a close-up of Dexter, with him repeating "The Horror...The Horror.." in relation to his sister DeeDee. The episode ends in a similar fashion.
  • In the Channel 4 TV series That Peter Kay Thing, the episode The Ice Cream Man Cometh contains a scene which is very similar to the opening scene of Apocalypse Now, right down to the lighting of the room, the sound effect of the roof fan and the main character looking through his blinds. He also parodies Lt. Colonel Kilgore's famous 'napalm' line with "I love the smell of raspberry in the morning" while pouring raspberry ice cream sauce all over himself.
  • Big Train has a spoof sketch in which Simon Pegg recites, near word-for-word and under replicated lighting, Kurtz's monologue, then performs a silly piece of finger-magic to Mark Heap.
  • In an episode of Recess Mikey makes the comment "The horror, the horror" when discovering recess will be indoors. In another episode Mrs. Finster said "I love the smell of gas in the morning" referring to buses getting ready to depart for a school field trip.
  • In The Venture Bros. second season episode Assassinanny 911, a drug-crazed Hank Venture attacks his dad with a machete in a scene parodying the ending of Apocalypse Now. Hank also quotes lyrics from "The End."
  • On Superman: The Animated Series, there is an episode entitled "Apokolips...Now!"
  • The Wire episode "Mission Accomplished" references the famous hellicopter attack scene, with "Ride of the Valkyries" playing during a police raid on an open-air drug market. A police hellicopter pilot also speaks some dialog lifted out of the scene.
  • In the Scrubs episode "My Heavy Meddle", when the Janitor is cleaning up fruit thrown off the roof, he whispers the line, "The horror."
  • The Sealab 2021 episode, "Waking Quinn", during Quinn's coma dreams Captian Murphy and Marco have a conversation exactually the same, word for word, as the first meeting between Williard and the colonel Kurtz.
  • In Avatar: The Last Aibender, Character Chey, from The Deserter talks like the "photojournalist" Dennis Hopper plays.

[edit] Music

  • Every Time I Die's third album, Gutter Phenomenon features an opening track entitled "Apocalypse Now And Then".
  • The band Sodom has a song in their album M-16 called "Napalm in the Morning" which has Kilgore's famous speech at the beginning of it, although it is shortened to "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like... victory."
  • Iron Maiden has a song inspired in the movie, which is made of some quotes from the movie. The song is "Edge of Darkness" from The X Factor album (1995).
  • Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose famously wore a T-Shirt with the picture of Charles Manson, with the quote "Charlie Don't Surf."
  • A song titled "Charlie Don't Surf" appears on the classic album "Sandinista!" by The Clash.
  • Manic Street Preachers guitarist Richey Edwards had a tattoo with the line "I'll surf this beach" on his arm.
  • Poison The Well has a song on the album "Tear From the Red" titled, "Karsey Street" in which the famous lines of Colonial Kurtz are repeated over guitar riffs and drum beats.
  • The Recoil song Incubus from the album Unsound Methods features the line "Everytime I think I'm gonna wake up back in the jungle". The album's title is a reference to General Corman's description of Kurtz's methods; they are Unsound.
  • The GWAR song Horror of Yig starts out with Kurtz' "Horror has a face..." speech, and ends with Kurtz' last words "The horror".
  • The rapper Tupac Shakur's debut album was titled 2pacalypse Now.
  • The song "Bug Powder Dust" by Bomb the Bass (featuring Justin Warfield) includes the line "Send ya up the river like you're lookin' for Kurtz"
  • The Jedi Mind Tricks/Army of the Pharaohs track "War Ensemble" opens with a clip from Willard reciting Kurtz's letter to his son.
  • The Rain, a song by popular Drum and Bass band Photek features a sentence "the rain comes down" spoken by Captain Benjamin L. Willard in the movie.
  • The British psychedelic noise band Loop, on its 1990 release A Gilded Eternity's last track, "Shot With A Diamond," featured as its only words a recurring sample of Marlon Brando (as Kurtz) speaking the line, "Like I was shot . . . like I was shot with a diamond . . . a diamond bullet, right through my forehead."
  • Tribal-electro DJ and producer Oliver Ho, uses lines from Apocalypse Now in his Resistance Vol.2 mix-fusion. The Willard lines "I'm still only in Saigon" and those of Hoppers' praising Kurtz can be heard repeatedly on the tracks "Many Worlds", "Metaphysical" and "Remember Dario".
  • Dillinger Four's song "SELLTHEHOUSESELLTHECARSELLTHEKIDSFORGETITI'MNEVERCOMINGBACKFORGETIT" is titled after the letter from Kolby to his wife that Willard reads from the dossier.
  • "Fuck What You Heard" by Bane begins with a quote from Kilgore: "We'll come in low over the rising sun, and about a mile out we'll put on the music."
  • The band Death from Above 1979 tooks its name from the words printed on the helicopters of the fleet headed by Kilgore (Duvall) and the year in which the film was released, 1979.
  • The Argentinean funk-pop duet Illya Kuryaki and The Valderramas, titled one of their songs as "Apocalipsis Wow". Its lyrics make some references to war topics.

[edit] Games

  • The opening sequence to StarCraft: Brood War pays homage to Apocalypse Now, as a marine searches for a commanding officer in a trench strewn with Christmas lights, while rock music plays.
  • In StarCraft: Brood War, firebats say "I love the smell of napalm" when selected, similarly when selected repeatedly, the Siege tank commander will sing "Ride of the Valkyries".
  • Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K has a villain, the primarch of the Night Lords legion, named Konrad Curze. He goes insane and defects from the Imperium of Man, joining the damned followers of Chaos with his Legion. He is eventually killed by an assassin named M´Shen (the name most likely a reference to Martin Sheen), allowing himself to be killed.
  • In MMORPG World of Warcraft, a quest is given in which you have to bring the head of Colonel Kurzen to a lieutenant. Obviously it is a tribute to Apocalypse Now [1].
  • The EA game Battlefield: Vietnam clearly took much inspiration from Apocalypse Now, from the "Ride of the Valkyries" music being available on the radio to the orange-and-black tiger-stripe motif colouring of the M79 grenade launcher.
  • If you enter in the "What If?" code in the Spiderman game for the PlayStation, a member of SWAT will hum the "Ride of the Valkyries" and exclaim "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."
  • The game Army Men: RTS is based around Sarge eliminating a "Colonel Blintz", who went mad after a massive disfiguring head wound.
  • The games Conker's Bad Fur Day and the subsequent Conker: Live & Reloaded (a remake of the former) feature the quote "The horror, the horror." at the end of the level "It's War". This is clearly a reference to Kurtz' final line.
  • The game Conflict: Vietnam has an African American chief in charge of a patrol boat who bears a striking resemblance to Chief Phillips.
  • The mod Heart of Darkness for half-life is completely based around the playable charcater being sent as an assassin to kill a Colonel Kurtz during a spoof on the Vietnam war which included zombies.
  • When you complete the "Get back at the frat boys" challenge in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4. One of the frat boys mimics the line "The horror, the horror."
  • The intro of 1990's game NAM-1975 for Neo Geo console features a sequence almost identical of the movie Apocalypse Now.

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