22 American TV/Movie References Non-Americans Don’t Get

Here I was thinking it was just a jaunty song that everyone found particularly entertaining, but the song Joey sings is actually a parody of “This Land Is Your Land”, a 1944 record by American folk singer Woody Guthrie!

Having seen what a Clark Bar looks like – long, flat, and mottled – I’d much rather be compared to Clark Gable.

I’m not sure which came first – me learning how to read Roman numerals or me realising Americans have a different emergency number.

Apart from sounding cute, this line refers to Pete Buttigieg, a former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana who was briefly in the running for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election. Buttigieg is the first openly gay major presidential candidate in American history.

In an episode called “Hashtag FOMO”, Abbi and Ilana end up in what is easily one of the least cool places in NYC, Port Authority. It’s the busiest bus terminal in the world, and New Yorkers say it is always overcrowded, smells terrible, has no WiFi, and the buses NEVER RUN ON TIME.

To me, a Brit, this just sounded positively filthy! I was only able to work out through contextual clues that they meant drinking.

I’m told he’s the official mascot for Kool-Aid, an American drink mix. He would regularly appear in commercials and, as Family Guy fans know, he would often smash through walls holding a pitcher and yelling his catchphrase: “Oh yeah!”

Michaels is actually an arts and crafts superstore, which make sense as Chi Chi often referred to herself as a “resourceful” queen, and famously entered the workroom during her season in a bin-bag dress!

My most plausible conclusion at the time: Conan was another child of Debbie’s who we’d never seen before. “Conan” is actually shorthand for Late Night with Conan O’Brien, a popular late-night talk show that ran on NBC from 1993 until 2009.

I’ve never been to Reno but by the sounds of it, it’s got a reputation for being run-down and lousy with crime. The city hasn’t seen much regeneration in the last few decades, and it’s also been described as dirty, with a lack of things to do, and a terrible public transport infrastructure – or at least, so sayeth Tripadvisor!

She’s right though, he really doesn’t look like the candy bar – least of all a three-part, chocolate-covered nougat candy!

It was only years later that I was in an American mall and I saw one IRL! Pottery Barn is a posh American homeware store which sells premium home furnishings and accessories. This episode is rumoured to have been bankrolled by a substantial product placement deal, but Pottery Barn has previously stated that the infamous apothecary table was actually donated.

I loved this gag but honestly, I had no idea what was going on, which is often the case with Family Guy. Turns out Oral Roberts is an actual Christian liberal arts university in Tulsa, Oklahoma named after famous evangelist Oral Roberts. I can confirm that after a troubling Google search Anal Roberts is, by contrast, not a real college.