References to the GTA Series

This page is about the references to the Grand Theft Auto series in other works of fiction.

References in film

Meet the Spartans, a 2008 parody film of the movie 300, has one of its fighting scenes made into a GTA gameplay. This scene is also called as "Grand Theft Auto: Hot Gates" in the film. ^(video)
In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, L.J. (Mike Epps) shouts "GTA, motherfucker!" when he runs over a wandering zombie with his car while driving in the zombified Raccoon City. He then shouts "Yeah! 10 points!", a reference to the scoring system in the GTA 2D Universe where players will score some points for running over a pedestrian.
In the 2010 movie The Other Guys, when Will Ferrell is asked by Mark Wahlberg how he managed to dodge some bad guys so well, Will replies simply with "Grand Theft Auto". After they escape, one of the bad guys says "someone's been playing Grand Theft Auto". It can be seen here.
In The Simpsons Movie, Homer plays a game called Grand Theft Walrus.
In the 2010 movie Knight and Day, when Cameron Diaz tell her boyfriend how she managed to escape some bad agents in "Grand Theft Auto" on the I-93 car. It can be seen in the trailer here.
In the 2015 movie Superfast!, when Dio Johnson get out of his car, he say "I'll GTA on your ass" and then the screen is changed like the GTA V's screen, and finally when the bad guy has died, the "Wasted" message appear on the screen.

References in television

In Season 18 Episode 14 of The Simpsons, Bart plays a game called Death Kill City II: Death Kill Stories, Bart refers to the games as DKC2DKS, a reference to how GTA games are abbreviated, the 'stories' part of the title maybe a reference to GTA Liberty City Stories and GTA Vice City Stories and the games boxart features the Pricedown font used on all GTA covers since Grand Theft Auto III.
- Once again in The Simpsons, The Simpsons Game contains a level called Grand Theft Scratchy. Grand Theft Scratchy is also seen at the E4 (supposed to be E3) convention in season 23's 5th episode, The Food Wife.
- On the boxart for the "game", there is a picture which looks like the helicopter from GTA San Andreas boxart.
In season 13 episode 3 of South Park "Margaritaville", Cartman does a favor for Kyle and Stan in exchange for a copy of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.
- In season 17 episode 1, called "Let go, Let Gov", Cartman complaining about the goverment is watching him, he mentions that he went to buy Grand Theft Auto V from Amazon.com.
- In season 18 episode 7, titled "Grounded Vindaloop", Butters, under the influence that he was wearing VR goggles, compared his rampage through town to the video game series Grand Theft Auto. This included both hijacking the car and trying to beat up a hooker to get her money: both events are actual elements of the gameplay in the GTA series.
In an episode of Family Guy where Peter crashes his car, Lois makes him play Grand Theft Auto for 8 hours, which follows with him hitting a prostitute with a baseball bat and then stealing a car. Link to it here.
There is a reference to it in Season 7 of Scrubs here.
In an episode of NCIS, Grand Theft Auto III and the Kuruma are referenced by Agent McGee where the car is a Chrysler Sebring and is called a Kuruma as the getaway vehicle in the episode. here.
In some episodes of the Johnny Test series, Johnny and Dukey are sometimes seen playing a game called Grand Theft Zombie.
In two episodes of The Amazing World of Gumball, on The Mystery, when Principal Brown and Miss Simian got run over by the ambulance, it makes the same sound when the player runs over a pedestrian.
In the sketch show MadTV, there are 2 sketches referencing Grand Theft Auto. One is an advertisement for a board game version of the game, which can be seen here. The other is a game show type format of Grand Theft Auto, which can be seen here.
In Season 5 episode 15 of the sketch show Robot Chicken, there is a sketch entitled "The Ballad of Gay Tony". The sketch is a musical number starring Gay Tony, alongside other video game characters who claim to be gay as well (however, there is no evidence of this being true in canon of their respective video games), including Zangief from the Street Fighter series, Cloud Strife from the Final Fantasy series, PaRappa the Rapper from the game of the same name, and Pac-Man from the series of the same name
In season 3 of Blue Bloods, Hector Santiago, a mentally challenged teenager, shoots Mayor Carter Poole in the season finale episode "This Way Out". He mentions Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to detectives after being told by the gang members that the gun was a toy & that this was a funny prank.
In season 5 episode 14 of The Big Bang Theory, "The Beta Test Initiation", Leonard says he played Grand Theft Auto so many times, he could handle a gun in real life.
There is a reference to Grand Theft Auto series from the Turkish TV Series Ben De Ozledim. It can be seen here.
In an episode of Jessie, Luke says the game he play before Jessie grounds him was called Grand Theft Carbon.
In an episode of Chapelle's Show, there is a parody of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City where Dave Chapelle says he plays the game so much that it changed his life. This is followed by a skit where he is acting as Tommy Vercetti. The skit can be seen here .
There is an episode from the King of the Hill series titled Grand Theft Arlen, which is an obvious parody of the GTA series.
In the Two and a Half Men episode, "I Merely Slept with a Commie ", Jake asks a Chinese child whether he "Plays on an Xbox or a Playstation?", to which the Chinese child replies with "A cello". Jake asks "How do you play that", to which the Chinese child replies with several names of musicals. Jake's only dumbfounded reaction is to ask "so wait, no Grand Theft Auto?"
- On another episode of Two and a Half Men, "Mmm, Fish. Yum.", Jake tells Judith that he has been driving for years, on Grand Theft Auto 1 and Grand Theft Auto 2.

References in video games

The Simpsons: Hit and Run has many features similar to Grand Theft Auto, and serves as a parody of such.
- "Hit and Run" and "Grand Theft Auto" are both vehicle crimes.
- The gameplay is a sandbox style, with a focus on law breaking and hijacking vehicles. The HUD is also similar between the two.
- Players complete story objectives via missions. Both games also have a tutorial sequence (which is openly referenced in Hit and Run as such), and an ending that spans over multiple areas of the game world, with the main climax being at a large, industial power plant (Cochrane Dam, Springfield Power Plant)
- Races are available in both, and the player is monetarily rewarded for them.
- Killing enemies or NPCs provides the player with in-game currency.
- Secret vehicles and collectibles are available throughout the open world.
In DRIV3R, a game similar in nature to GTA, there is a character named Timmy Vermicelli which a reference to Tommy Vercetti. The character is a in-game joke and makes fun of Tommy not being able to swim so they gave him water wings.
In Tom Clancy's The Division, the player can find a purple bowling ball with "cousin" written on it. This is a reference to Roman Bellic's infamous "Let's go bowling" quote.
In Another Case Solved, there's a criminal named Carl Johnson who is obviously inspired from CJ, the main protagonist of GTA San Andreas.
- Later in the game, during the mission Museum Menace, Pola Chapelle (one of the main characters in Another Case Solved) describes Carl as a leader of a gang who specializes in car thieves, a clear reference to Grand Theft Auto.

In the 2018 Spider-Man video game, during a side mission, the player has to listen to some criminals discussing a heist. One of them, Niko mentions that his brother's son, Roman is the getaway driver.

References in other forms of media

In a Dutch comercial from Friesche Vlag, you see a game similar to Grand Theft Auto IV in which a guy who looks similar to Niko Bellic crashes his car and runs away from the police and then stops to drink his breaker (a yogurt drink). The video can be seen here.
The cover design of I Ran: The Best Of, an album of re-recordings by the British band A Flock of Seagulls, is a homage to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's artwork. "I Ran (So Far Away)" by the band features on Wave 103 in the game's soundtrack.

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