KH references and cameos in other media?

[WaltK]

Have you ever spotted a sneaky cameo or explicit reference to Kingdom Hearts in films, TV, comics, etc?

They’re pretty rare, in my experience, but I have seen at least one, in The Big Bang Theory, of all places!

In the season 4 episode “The Justice League Recombination”, when the gang are at the comic book store, Penny’s himbo boyfriend Zack decides to grab a couple of Archie Comics, to the embarrassment of Sheldon and the others. On the back of one of the issues he picks up is none other than an ad for 358/2 Days!

<This is where the screenshot of the moment in question would go, but I cannot find one online nor can I find an upload of the clip to take a snapshot of>

Side note: Archie Comics did, indeed, run ads for 358/2 Days on their back covers back in the day.

 

[palizinhas]

Not sure it counts cause it's a Disney thing, but one that comes to mind is that in the s1 finale of DuckTales 2017, Beakley makes Scrooge's favorite dessert, and it uses sea salt ice cream, a reference to KH Scrooge loving it.

 

[MATGSY]

The Simpsons Game (2007) had 2 refferences in it's let's-mock-everything-we-know-about-Japan stage:

1. Staues of the family dog made to look like Amaterasu from Okami, holding a keyblade in his mouth (with Scratchy's head replacing the mickey symbol)

2. Comic Book Guy as a sumo wrestler enemy will sometimes say "Every light must, every heart return to darkness".

 

[WaltK]

Not sure it counts cause it's a Disney thing, but one that comes to mind is that in the s1 finale of DuckTales 2017, Beakley makes Scrooge's favorite dessert, and it uses sea salt ice cream, a reference to KH Scrooge loving it.

It counts!

 

[okhi12]

I was a Bleach fan back then and I noticed a Bleach poster in the wall in that episode (it's very easy to see) but I had no idea of the KH add!
Final Fantasy references are common in media, but KH ones are indeed very rare.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Does all of the hints Jesse McCartney dropped in The Masked Singer count?

 

[Zettaflare]

Does all of the hints Jesse McCartney dropped in The Masked Singer count?

What were the hints? Was he quoting Roxas or Ven?

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

What were the hints? Was he quoting Roxas or Ven?

No, it was like hearts and checkerboard/chess boards and then he said something about the heart of his kingdom later on...

 

[Chaser]

We had a thread on this a couple of years ago. There’s not much out there, unfortunately .

There was a soldier heartless in a TV show back in 2018

https://twitter.com/x/status/994417738096328706

Here’s the big bang theory reference

And that Ducktales reference definitely counts. The show runner went on the record saying that there was a KH reference.

Some Nick show had the crown symbol

 

[Soldier]

Ah yes, American Housewife. The show that took potshots at Newport like it was a shooting gallery.

In one issue of GameInformer (yes, I read that sometimes) a tiny figure of Sora can be seen on the front cover alongside other notable heroes like Cloud and Mario. IIrc KH II ranked 25 in their issue covering 75 of the best games of all time.

 

[WaltK]

Here’s the big bang theory reference

This wasn’t the scene I was talking about, but I forgot about this one.

 

[Chaser]

Must have reused the same prop then lol

 

[kirabook]

There's a keyblade in Terraria called "Keybrand"

Keybrand

The Keybrand is a Hardmode, post-Plantera weapon. It has a 0.5*1/200 (0.5%) / 0.75*1/133 (0.75%) chance of being dropped by Blue Armored Bones, Hell Armored Bones, and Rusty Armored Bones in the post-Plantera Dungeon. In the Remix Seed, the Keybrand can be sold by the Traveling Merchant in...

terraria.fandom.com

 

[MATGSY]

There's a keyblade in Terraria called "Keybrand"

Keybrand

The Keybrand is a Hardmode, post-Plantera weapon. It has a 0.5*1/200 (0.5%) / 0.75*1/133 (0.75%) chance of being dropped by Blue Armored Bones, Hell Armored Bones, and Rusty Armored Bones in the post-Plantera Dungeon. In the Remix Seed, the Keybrand can be sold by the Traveling Merchant in...

terraria.fandom.com

Castle Crashers has a "keysword": https://castlecrashers.fandom.com/wiki/Key_Sword

 

[AdrianXXII]

The most obvious one I can think of was in Rooster Teeth's Red Vs. Blue where one of the Blue guys gets a sword that's also a key.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1304253087335559170

 

[rokudamia2]

https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Key_Sword

I mean it's just a keyblade

 

[2 quid is good]

Yugioh has recently gotten a new archetype where the art and flavour texts seems to strongly reference KH

 

[AR829038]

I recall there being a very small maybe-reference in Toy Story 4 in the form of a little key-shaped keychain, which would be especially noteworthy since KH3 is supposed to be somehow canon with the Toy Story movies (although I'm not sure they actually are and I think John Lasseter or whoever said that may have been talking out of their ass).
It's always funny how bonkers we get whenever we see a reference to KH in other media. Even though KH3 was the best selling game of 2019, we're all still in that stage we were back in the early 2000's where even the slightest nod of acknowledgment makes us lose our shit. I believe KH is going to be referenced more and more often with how popular the series is becoming, but it's just funny to think we're still at that point where we're just hungering for other franchises to acknowledge our existence. KH isn't just Final Fantasy's little brother anymore! We exist! Our fandom grows stronger with each passing moon!

 

[Squood!]

Yeeeaaaahhhh there's barely any legit references out there.

Hell you're more likely to find someone saying [insert thing here] is a KH reference/cameo only for it to be a bust. Hell, the crown showing up on a Nick Jr. show is definitely unintentional.

The Yu-Gi-Oh one is definitely a reference tho.