WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

In the Cat Burglar episode from The Simpsons, I think that it had a few, subtle Watchmen references. At one point, Chief Wiggum is looking for a pattern in the burglaries and it turns out to be an arrow pointing towards the Police Station and later on in the episode, Lisa says something to the likes of "If you are watching the cops, who's watching you?" or something like that, I've only seen the spanish dubbed version. Also, the episode is about Homer forming a team of vigilantes.

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My unofficial and offical work-> http://www.youtube.com/movieboyandco

"If you're the police, who will police the police?"

I don't think so, though. Even, "Who Watches the Watchmen" isn't unique to the comic. Although I wouldn't be surprised if there were more hidden Watchmen jokes in The Simpsons. Matt and Co. are well documented comic book fans. I want to say there was one episode where at one point a character says, "I did it..." (pause, throws up hands) "I DID IT!" Of course it could be the two medias getting mixed up in my head.

i watched "Southland Tales" over the weekend, and on the making of featurette there is aboard shown detailing the UPU patrols, not sure if it is a ref. to watchmen or the original Minutemen, but under the UPU2 section it lists "Minutemen"
on the whole though there are some elements of similarity if not reference, such as the alternate timeline concept, the end of reliance on fossil fuels, teleportation/time travel, precognition, if you haven't seen it it's worth a watch

edit: just remembered there is a lot of "smiley" faces

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

Not sure if this has been said yet, but Lost is filled with Watchmen references. The most obvious is Desmond. He has a picture of himself and his girlfriend, posed the same way as Jon and Janey Slater; he is then trapped in a scientific device and...well, something happens (we're not sure what) and he reappears, naked. Then he can see the future and travel through time nonlinearly, exactly as Dr. Manhattan describes it.

Damon Lindelof, Lost's co-creator and showrunner, once said "I feel so unoriginal saying Watchmen changed everything for me...obviously that and Dark Knight Returns are two of the books that made me want to become a writer," which confirms he was influenced heavily by Watchmen. There are also other subtle references, like the structure of each episode having flashbacks from one character (as Watchmen has most issues with flashbacks focusing on one character) and those flashbacks intersecting to show the same event from multiple points of view and over the course of many episodes; the ability to learn more about dead characters through their appearances in flashbacks; a huge multibillion dollar corporation with secret experiments on a Pacific island; Alvar Hanso's attempts to save the world by killing millions of Africans, and Rachel BLAKE being hunted for knowing too much about this plot; the DHARMA Sri Lanka video having a Hydrogen atom for a symbol (confirmed by Javier Grillo-Marxuach as a Watchmen reference); Bernard and his wife Rose; Kate learning her true father was someone she and her mother hated; the foot statue (a reference to the poem Ozymandias); Locke's father throwing him out his apartment window for threatening to call the police on him; Adrian's jungle in the middle of the ice (versus Ben's ice room in the middle of the jungle); Henry Gale's smiley face balloon having a tear through the left eye; and Desmond warning everyone of the impending doom brought by a ship repeatedly referred to as a "freighter."

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I don't mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one.

I think all posts starting with the above, or variations of it, should be deleted. Fed up of people's laziness and disregard of all other members by not reading their posts.

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Actually, I did go back to make sure all the Lost references weren't mentioned (originally it was just the one, then I got carried away and added the others), but never deleted the first sentence. I'm sorry.

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I don't mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one.

FUCK, I never noticed that. Now I love the series even more.
F

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Never give you up
Never gonna let you down

English not very good. Forgive me.

http://www.ghondar.blogspot.com
Because people on the internet think that I'm somewhat funny.

That seems like a pretty definitive list of LOST/Watchmen refs, BDS, but you forgot:

• A young boy (Walt/Bernie the Younger) reading a comic book whose plot eerily mirrors our heroes' present predicament.

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"The light is taking me to pieces, and I'm afraid I just blue myself."

Oh wow, that's a good one. And Walt even resembles Bernie.

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I don't mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one.

God Dammit now i got to watch Lost now...

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"The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"...and I'll look down, and whisper 'No'." October 12th, 1985

John Hodgman (Daily Show correspondent, the PC guy from the "Mac vs. PC" commercials) referenced Watchmen in his recent book More Information Than You Require. He lists a bunch of humorous "stock" roles he could play on TV (wacky neighbor, etc.) including this one:

I can't believe I didn't notice this. I saw so many similarities to Watchmen (and especially Dr Manhattan's origin story) but not this!

The issue is a real treat for Watchmen fans so I've decided to upload it...

But first, a bit of background...

The story is based on a comic called Prez that only lasted 4 issues yet is remembered fondly...
It imagines a world where the voting age is lowered and a young President is elected.

Neil Gaiman's take is sort of a reimagination filtered through Watchmen. Observe:


The original comic.


A panel from Watchmen.


The result.

Without further adieu...

Cover 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 16 17

TBC

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18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

So there you have it.

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Man, I love that issue of Sandman. Beautiful stuff... I think I may have caught the Watchmen reference when I first read it, but I wasn't as fevered about Watch-stuff at that time.

Thanks for the upload!

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"Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme.
He must be always on his guard
and devote every minute and module
of life to the decoding of the undulation of things."
-Nabokov, "Signs and Symbols"

Holy shit, Dr Dre is Ozymandias!

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Gone fishin'

I just got done reading a fantastic book called The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao



It's a story about a fat, overweight Dominican kid who wishes to become "The Dominican J.R.R. Tolkein" That's the plot on the back of the book but man oh man, it's a larger and deeper story than that.

I bring it up because there's a number of geekdom reference from works such as Lord of The Rings, Akira and of course, Watchmen

The best reference above the rest though, was the in the final chaper, which I won't fully spoil for you but they end it with a character flipping through issue/chapter 12, looking through "A Stronger Loving World" and actually ending the story with the quote "In The End? Nothing Ends, Adrian. Nothing Ever Ends."

I was stunned and smiling a bit because it just HAD to be a Watchmen reference to end the story.

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"When someone asks if you're a god, you say YES!"

Cool.
Sounds like a good book, I off to hunt it down.

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...evidently chicken-town.

I've always wanted to claim that the Smash Mouth song, "Walkin' On The Sun" was a Watchmen reference, but I have no proof. Oh, well...

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Gone fishin'

Glad to hear it. It's a fantastic read above all else. Maybe not Watchmen's level...but it certainly didn't win the 2007 Pulitzer prize for nada.

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"When someone asks if you're a god, you say YES!"

In 1989, Marvel UK/Epic Comics published a series called 'The Sleaze Brothers' (kind of a Blues Brothers meets Blade Runner, very tongue in cheek title), don't know if anyone else here will be familiar with it but, as I remember (this is going back a loo-ooo-oong time) the smiley face badge was worn by one of the characters. Also the graffiti 'Who watches the watchmen?' appears, I think in the first issue, scrawled on a wall. I apologize for not having any pictures to upload, I don't own the comic anymore and haven't been able to find it anywhere on the internet.

I think it should be stressed again that 'quis custodiet ipsos custodes' ('who watches the watchmen?) wasn't invented by Alan Moore, rather the 6th century Roman satirist Juvenal (I studied him at school and uni, as far as I recall the quote is a reference to corrupt police who mug citzens on their way home late at night, the poem itself is a complete critique of life in the city). Therefore not everyone who uses this phrase is referencing the graphic novel.

An even more obscure (or perhaps less relevant) reference is that, when the UK dance act Bomb The Bass released the single 'Beat Dis' in 1987, the cover was a yellow smiley face. Not only did this image go on to symbolise 'acid house' music for years (people wore the badges, my girlfriend and her pals used to paint smiley eyes and a mouth onto a roundabouts on the way home from rave parties, the symbol appeared on t-shirts and, I'm told, ecstacy tablets) but Bomb The Bass' Tim Simenon wore a replica of the Comedian's blood-splattered smiley badge and, in an issue of the pop magazine 'Smash Hits' where celebrities were asked to customise smiley t-shirts, Simenon's was simply a splash of red over the right eye.