Disney's Wreck-It Ralph was a veritable easter eggstravaganza for video game nerds, especially
those that spent half their lives in the arcade during the '80s and '90s.
Here's a look at some of the things in the film only adults will have noticed.
There's a lot going on with the two policemen characters introduced in the Sugar Rush realm.
The pair serve the tyrannical King Candy, meaning they're pretty fast and loose with
their use of tasers and batons, which reads a bit like a statement in itself, especially
when factoring in the Surge Protector's "random" screening stops with Ralph.
"Awwww."
"Step aside, sir.
Random security check."
"Random security check my behind, you always stop me."
"I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.”
Not to mention their motto is "to heat and serve," which is pretty close to the usual
law enforcement credo of "to protect and serve."
On a lighter note, they're also shaped like a donut and an eclair, and are named and Duncan
as an homage to Winchell's Doughnut House and Dunkin' Donuts.
To children, they may seem like any of the other personified edibles running around the
game, but their parents are sure to get a chuckle out of this somewhat unsubtle play
on the whole "cops like donuts" stereotype.
Generation Z-ers might be inclined to fixate on some of the more contemporary references
scattered about the screen in Wreck-It Ralph, things like Dance Dance Revolution, Bowser
from Super Mario Bros. and the Halo-esque soldiers riffed on in Hero's Duty.
But there are some background characters with much longer histories.
Frogger, Street Fighter, and Sonic the Hedgehog are probably still mainstream enough to ring
a bell for most people.
Some of the more obscure characters in the film, however, include Tapper's bowtie-wearing
bartender and.
And while fully-grown filmgoers might find their fingers glued to the pause button as
they scour the screens for these hidden gems, the younger crowd probably doesn't care about
a bunch of 8-bit oldies.
Even the most obvious game reference of all in Wreck-It Ralph could be easily missed by
anyone who wasn’t around for the glory days of the earliest arcade systems.
Fix-It Felix is purely a cinematic creation, but was undoubtedly inspired by Donkey Kong,
which debuted in 1981 on an arcade machine that also featured the debut of Jumpman, otherwise
known as Mario.
Donkey Kong as a character will still be familiar to today's device-wielding whippersnappers,
since he appears in modern games like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros., so it's probably
not too surprising that his hulking size, brute strength, and general oafishness inspired
a lot of Ralph's physical and personality traits.
It's Fix-It Felix's mission and play style that really bears a striking resemblance to
the old Donkey Kong, though.
"Anyhoo, what else?
Uh…
I'm a wrecker.
I wreck things, professionally."
"I'm gonna wreck it!”
In both games, the do-gooder is charged with climbing a large structure while the villain
tosses debris down at them.
They might not be exactly the same, but, well, they practically are.
It's not until the tail end of Wreck-It Ralph that audiences find out the film features
another Disney Princess to add to the collection.
But even after she's suited up in a ball gown, Vanellope Von Schweetz handles this fact very
differently than her forebears.
Sure, there are a few theoretical similarities to the princesses of old: she's been deprived
of her title by an evildoer, gets bullied by a bunch of mean girls and is frequently
told that her eccentricities, in this case, glitches, are troublesome.
So far, so Disney Princess.
Unlike her peers, however, Vanellope has no interest in wearing the crown.
"I was here.
I was there.
I was glitchin' through the walls.
I'm not giving that up."
For the most part, there's nothing stereotypically princessy about her; she's feisty, resourceful,
determined and has absolutely no interest in living a prim life of privilege.
Not only that, but there's nary a love interest in sight either, and while Ralph does help
her fulfill her dream of earning a spot in the big race, she does a lot of the legwork
herself.
The Diet Coke and Mentos geyser gag that saves the day in Wreck-It Ralph is based on a real
trend that became big in the mid-aughts after an on-air demonstration of the effect went
viral, subsequently inspiring an episode of MythBusters.
For those who grew up ahead of the internet age, though, there was a much earlier version
of the messy at-home experiment that everyone just had to try.
Way back when, it was the Wint-O-Green flavored Lifesavers that kids would drop into their
soda bottles to set off a massive liquid eruption.
That was just one of the many food-item combination challenges that would get around by word of
mouth in the '90s.
So while the candy-soda combo trick in Wreck-It Ralph may be a convenient plot device that
kids can shrug their shoulders at, the older crowd might just get a tinge of nostalgia
after seeing it come into use.