A Night at The Opera (film) - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Stateroom scene

• The Belgian singer Jacques Brel was inspired by the famous stateroom gag in the film when he wrote his song "Le Gaz" (1967) which depicts several men all crowding together in one room to meet a courtesan "for the gas."
• Cyndi Lauper featured a similar overcrowded stateroom gag in her music video for the song "Girls Just Want To Have Fun".
• Sting also recreated the overcrowded stateroom gag in his music video for the 1991 song "All This Time".
• The Warner Bros. animated show Animaniacs also paid homage to the stateroom gag in the short "Hercule Yakko".
• Though not one room, Mr. Mom also paid an homage to the stateroom gag in its finale.
• In the Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a scene almost identical to the stateroom scene occurs in the Martins' closet.
• An 8th season episode of Seinfeld titled "The Pothole" features a homage to the stateroom scene in which the four main characters all cram into a small janitor's closet that Elaine is using to get Chinese food delivered; they all end up spilling out after Kramer spills ammonia.
• Mystery writer Jeffrey Cohen paid tribute to the stateroom scene in his novel A Night at the Operation (2009). The book's title also parodies the name of the movie.

Sanity clause

• The British punk band The Damned used Chico's quote ("There ain't no sanity clause") as a title for a 1980 single.
• Detective Comics #826 pays homage to the film. In it the Joker captures Tim Drake, the third Robin, and takes him on a mad spree in a car, running over anyone they encounter over the Christmas season. When the Joker plans to kill a street Santa Claus, Robin distracts him by saying "You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Claus." The Joker laughs and the two get in an argument over which Marx Brothers film the gag is from, with Robin claiming it is from The Big Store. The Joker is distracted long enough for Robin to punch him out and escape. The Joker himself uses the line in The Killing Joke.

General

• The British rock group Queen paid homage to this film by naming one of their most famous albums after it.
• The film's script is credited as the basis for the 1992 film Brain Donors, produced by David Zucker and Jerry Zucker of Airplane! and The Naked Gun fame.
• At the end of the 1990 film The Freshman, Rodolfo Lassparri is the alias used on Matthew Broderick's passport.
• The German power metal band Blind Guardian paid homage to this film by naming one of their albums after it.