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Pink Floyd references on TV shows

The Simpsons

The Simpsons has made many references to Pink Floyd.

  • Dark Side of the Moon - Consistently a poster in Homer's room in his flashbacks; in "Homer Goes to College," there is a poster of the album in the dean's office at Springfield University.
  • Wish You Were Here - in "Old Man and the Lisa," Mr. Burns tells a Hippie recycler, 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'.
  • Animals - In the "Hullabalooza" episode. Homer sets off a cannon and the Pink Floyd pig is fired out. Peter Frampton states that "you're damn right, I'm gonna be pissed off; I bought that pig at a Pink Floyd's yard sale!"
  • The Wall - Episode where Homer discovers his middle name and becomes a hippie. After making juice with drugged vegetables, Ned Flanders drinks some and sees a strange parade which includes the hammers. Also In "Missionary: Impossible", Marge quotes the start of "Comfortably Numb" (saying, "Is there anybody in there?") when contacting Homer on a short wave radio. Also, in the episode "Make Room for Lisa," there is a poster of the walking hammers in the New Age shop.

It was also rumoured that Pink Floyd were set to appear as guests on the show due to a drawing of them, autographed by Matt Groening being distributed online. As of yet, they have not.

South Park

In the South Park episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Eric Cartman taunts "haha, charade you are" to the eponymous Radiohead-listening bully, a reference to the first part of the song "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" from Animals. He also tells this to Stan's sister, Shelly, in another episode after snapping a picture of her with her 22 year old boyfriend while she was supposed to babysit him.

That '70s Show

In That '70s Show, Hyde is often seen wearing a Dark Side of the Moon T-Shirt. The show is approaching the release date of The Wall near the end of 1979.

Family Guy

In the episode "The Story on Page 1", as Peter enters his house he says to Luke Perry, "I'm telling you, Dark Side of the Moon totally synchs up with the Wizard of Oz!" In "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", neighbor Mort Goldman mentions that he's trying to see if any movies sync up with the Eagles' Hotel California.

Friends

In the episode "The One with the Sonogram at the End", Chandler makes a statement about the first kiss as "a stand up comedian you have to put up with before Pink Floyd comes out."

Futurama

In the Futurama episode "The Series Has Landed", when Fry and Leela are running from the mad moon farmer, they notice that the dark side of the moon is coming. Fry says, "Cool! Dark side of the moon!" and a music clip that sounds like "Breathe" from Dark Side of the Moon plays.

Also, in the episode entitled "30% Iron Chef" we see Bender and two hobos leap off the space tracks (which are rainbow colored) just before reaching a light reflecting prism. This is an homage to the album cover for Pink Floyd's 1973 album "Dark Side Of The Moon".

Seinfeld

In the Seinfeld episode "The Puerto Rican Day," Kramer remarks "Pump up the Floyd! It's a George laserium!" when George is being stalked by someone with a handheld laser pointer. This is a reference to Pink Floyd themed Laserium shows often held at planetariums.

Other references

School Of Rock

Dark Side of the Moon is handed out to one of the vocalists in the band, as Jack Black tells her to "pay attention to the vocal solo on "The Great Gig in the Sky"

Almost Famous

A reflection of the cover to the album Dark Side of the Moon can be seen in the windshield while Penny Lane is driving William.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams was a fan of Pink Floyd, and personal friend of David Gilmour. He chose the title for The Division Bell and made a guest appearance on guitar at one of their concerts for his birthday.

In the original radio series, as Arthur Dent, Trillian, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android step out onto the lost planet of Magrathea, atmospheric music from Wish You Were Here (Shine on you Crazy Diamond part I of IX) plays. Arthur asks "Did you know that robot can hum like Pink Floyd?" and Marvin says he can also do rock and roll and switches to some Beatles. Note that this segment was cut from the released CDs.

The band Disaster Area (the loudest band and the loudest noise in the universe) were inspired by Pink Floyd. Their stage show involved crashing a spaceship into a sun. This could be inspired by Pink Floyd's crashing an aeroplane into the stage at some of their shows, and also by the song "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun".

Friday Night Lights

In the football movie Friday Night Lights starring Billy Bob Thorton, one of the characters is wearing a shirt with the Dark Side of the Moon album cover on it.

Crystal Voyager

The last section of Crystal Voyager, a 1975 documentary film about surfer George Greenough, consists of Greenough's distinctive surf camerawork, showing a surfer's-eye viewpoint of the waves whilst Echoes by Pink Floyd plays. The film is available on DVD.

Bubsy 2 (SNES Game)

In the Super Nintendo game Bubsy 2, one of the first levels in the game, named "Dark Side Of The Tomb," is a reference to Pink Floyd's album Dark Side Of The Moon.

The Doors (film)

When the band is reheasing/practising their song "Break On Through (to the Other Side)", after Meg Ryan states that their song is "hot", the guitarist plays a riff that sounds exactly like the begining of "Wish You Were Here".

Franz Ferdinand

In their music video,"Do You Want To", it shows have a man shaking a mannequin who is on fire.This is a clear reference to one of Pink Floyd's album covers,"Wish You Were Here".

The Fairly Oddparents

In the episode where Timmy finds a genie at his hippie teacher's yard sale, he leans of a mysitcal power called The Smoof, similar to that of Star Wars' The Force. While browsing through his teacher's belongings, he sees many Smoof-related items. He comes across an album that he calls "Dark Side of the Smoof" which has a cover identical to that of Pink floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" except that it has a square prism instead of a triangular one.

Synchronicities

The Wizard of Oz

Dark Side of the Moon has also been the source of a persistent urban legend that it was conceived as a kind of synchronized soundtrack for the film The Wizard of Oz. [1] (David Gilmour has since gone on record to deny the group had anything to do with "Dark Side"'s synchronization with "Oz".)

2001: A Space Odyssey

Another interesting synchronization occurs between the song Echoes, from Meddle, and the last scene of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, titled "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite." Although the relationships are less literal than those of the synch for The Wizard of Oz, they flow together well in a way that suggests that Pink Floyd intended the synchronization. When the two are played at the same time, there are periods where they are so similar that it is not discernable whether the sounds are from the song or the movie. The synch is started by aligning the first note of "Echoes" (the high pitched "ping") with the appearance of the title "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite."

It has been suggested that Kubrick may have at one point contacted Pink Floyd to score the film using existing and new material ("Echoes" could have had its genesis there, as Pink Floyd rarely completely abandoned a composition). A Clockwork Orange and other Kubrick films may also have been considered for similar treatment in varying degrees.

Apocalypse Now

One further interesting synchronization is when the Kurtz/Caribou killing scene in Apocalypse Now is played along with the song One of These Days from Meddle.[2] The beginning of the song is about 1 minute of soft wind blowing and is included. The song is begun at the same time as track 34 from Apocalypse Now (Redux) entitled "Caribou Sacrifice".

  • The dancing of the Montagnards appears consistent with the bass beat of the song.
  • As Willard enters the temple to kill Kurtz with an axe, the only lyrics of the song occurs - "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces".
  • The Song finishes and segues into wind as Kurtz mutters "The Horror".

Cycles

Pink Floyd is known for including cycles or bookends in their albums. Some cycles include:

  • The heartbeat in Dark Side of The Moon
  • Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Wish You Were Here)
  • Pigs on the Wing (Animals)
  • "...came in?" "Isn't this where we..." on The Wall
  • The radio news in The Final Cut
  • The wind in "Echoes"

Lengthy compositions

Pink Floyd are well known for their lengthy compositions, considered some of their finest works:

Miscellaneous

  • The 1988 live album The Delicate Sound Of Thunder is allegedly the first rock music to be played outside of Planet Earth. Cosmonauts of Soyuz TM-7 took an advance cassette (the album not being released until shortly afterwards) with them aboard their 1988 space mission. Pink Floyd were present at the launch. [3]
  • The giant inflatable pig that was to be used on the Animals album cover (floating over the Battersea Power Station) supposedly slipped its moorings and floated off, being spotted by airline pilots at 40,000 feet.
  • The original inflatable pig used in the Animals and Wall tours was designated intellectual property of Roger Waters that could not be used in the reformed (Gilmour, Mason and Wright) Floyd tours. They got around this by changing the sex of the pig, adding testicles.
  • Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, a list of 150 songs circulated on the internet purportedly sent out by radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications that were recommended to be pulled from airplay (it was later determined that the original list was the work of a few program directors working independently, and that the list changed and grew as it was circulated). Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell" and "Mother" were on the list.
  • On the song "Wish You Were Here", in the 26th second, a small cough can be heard, followed by an even quieter sniff at the 31st second. There are reports that this cough was what led David Gilmour to quitting smoking during the recording of the album, but some think the cough could just as easily be just to add to the 'person listening to WYWH coming onto the radio' effect.
  • Meddle, released in 1971 and considered Pink Floyd's turning-point album, received mixed reviews upon its release. Michael Watts of Melody Maker passed off the album as "So much sound and fury signifying nothing". Drummer Nick Mason responded to Watts' review by sending him a gift box containing a boxing glove mounted on a spring.
  • The last few seconds of the last track on Disc 2 of The Wall form a circular connection by continuing into the first few seconds heard on track one of Disc 1. Disc 2 ends with "Isn't this where..." Disc 1 starts with "...we came in?". Deliberately or not, this structural innovation recalls a similar one from James Joyce's novel, Finnegans Wake.
  • In "Have A Cigar" from Wish You Were Here, the line "by the way, which one's Pink?" was reportedly said by one of the execs that signed them.
  • The album Dark Side of the Moon ends with the barely audible quote "there is no dark side of the Moon really...matter of fact it's all dark"

Tribute bands

A multitude of tribute bands for Pink Floyd appeared in the 1990s. They include:

In the mid-1990s, several people (supposedly including Trent Reznor and Jim Cauty of the KLF) released bootleg trance remixes of More, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Obscured By Clouds, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here (which was later reissued), Animals, The Wall, A Collection of Great Dance Songs, The Final Cut, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell. The Orb did a complete ambient dub remix of the Wish You Were Here album as tribute to one of their favorite bands.

Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade recorded a complete live performance of the Pink Floyd classic album, Animals on a CD titled Live Frogs Set 2 [14]

Luther Wright and the Wrongs made a country/bluegrass version of The Wall titled Rebuild the Wall [15]

Jam band Phish performed Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety during a November 2, 1998 concert in Utah.

Other bands like At the Drive-In, KoЯn, Dream Theater, Velvet Revolver, Primus, Voivod, PROBOT, Scissor Sisters, Kittie, Mushroomhead, Type O Negative, System of a Down, Stone Temple Pilots, David Bowie, Unified Theory, Class of 99, Anathema, Wyclef Jean and Foo Fighters have recorded covers of Pink Floyd.

Electronic musicians Klaus Schulze and Pete Namlook have a long-time ongoing series (10 CDs 1994-2005 so far) entitled The Dark Side Of The Moog [16], whose tracks aren't covers but loosely PF-inspired dark ambient, and with playful tracks names such as "A Saucerful Of Ambience", "Obscured By Klaus", "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Mother", etc.

In addition, Easy Star All-Stars have recorded a reggae/trip hop 'tribute' to Dark Side of the Moon entitled Dub Side of the Moon [17]

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