If you remember eras of your life based on what 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:World of Warcraft expansion was out at the time, you’re not alone. Lauded as the king of MMOs, WoW’s 2004 launch forever changed the world of gaming and with each expansion, it꧂ grew with an entire generation of gamers. From questing in Azeroth to raiding alongside your friends, WoW is a unique experience that competing MMOs have often failed to recreate.
Part of WoW's charm is its lighthearted pop culture references celebrating iconic characters and memes from other entertainment mediums. And it’s not surprising that WoW itself, being a worldwide phenomenon, is also referenced as a humorous nod to nerd culture in mainstream television shows and films.
7 Zom🌠bieland
Picture this: a leaning tower of pizza boxes, copious amounts of soda, and nothing to do other than queuing battlegrounds in WoW. That’s the scene from the 2009 comedy horror movie Zombieland where you meet the nerdy protagonist Columbus. If you look closely, you’ll notice he’s playing as an undead rogue during a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Warsong Gulch battleground match, which is interr👍upted once he inevitably spil✅ls Mountain Dew on his shirt.
An undead rogue as his character is fitting, considering that the premise of the movie is about humanity tr꧙ying to survive against a vicious horde of undead. And unfortunately, there’s not much time for WoW when you’re ru🧔nning from zombies.
6 The Big𒐪 Baඣng Theory
The Big Bang Theory is an award-winning sitcom often kn𝓡own for its wealth of nerd culture references as it follows the lives of physicists Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter and their small friend group who liওve and breathe things like Star Trek, Comic-Con, and of course, World of Warcraft.
“The Zarnecki Incursion” a🧜nd “The Fuzzy Boots Corollary” are two episodes that feature WoW shenanigans. In fact, “The Zarnecki Incursion” is an entire episode about getting back Sheldon’s coveted WoW items after his account had been hacked. According to Sheldon, the thief stole his enchanted weapons, vicious gladiator armor, wand of untainted power, gold, and battle ostrich named 𝕴Glenn — a heist worthy of FBI interference in his opinion.
5 🍒 Family Guy
Shows like South Park, The Simpsons, and Family Guy frequently create hilarious gags about internet culture. So it was a long time coming when Family Guy finally parodied one of the most me𝔉morable moments in World of Warcraft history: the 2005 Leeroy Jenkins video. Even non-gamers have heard someone yell “Leeeroy Jeeenkins!” before doing something ill-advised, just as Leeroy did when he rushed into battle without hi🌳s guild, resulting in an inevitable wipe.
Season 16 Episode 10 features Peter, Joe, and Cleveland who are all stuck behind cover in the mid👍dle of a gunfight, and Cleveland suggests that🥂 pulling a Leeroy Jenkins would get them out of it. Everything that follows is identical to the original as the three talk out an elaborate plan, crunch some numbers meticulously, and run in after Cleveland pulls the Leeroy. Family Guy went even further to switch the perspective to third-person while also featuring WoW’s UI, including health bars, a map, and an action bar.
4 Leverage
Season one of Leverage, a crime drama𝔉 television series, follows a team made up of a thief, grifter, hacker, and retrieval specialist as they fight corporate injust♏ices by carrying out heists. The show was well-written with enjoyable characters and funny banter. Even better, World of Warcraft gets referenced by the character Hardison.
In the episode titled “The Mile High Job,” Hardison raves about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion; his guild kept him up all night 168澳洲幸🗹运5开奖网:fighting Kel’Thuzad in Naxxramas. Hardison’s experience is pretty relatable, as the hype surrounding that expansion kept us engrossed for hours, and it’s arguably the best expansion in WoW’s history, especially with the high stakes of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:defeating The Lich King.
3 ♑ 🌠How I Met Your Mother
“Who’s the mother?ﷺ” was the burning question that drove fans to keep watching the sitcom How I Met Your Mother for nine seasons, sticking with the hopeless romantic Ted through all his breakups, bad dates, and faux happy-ever-afters. Over𒆙 the years, you get to see Ted start up romances with many love interests in a variety of ways, including World of Warcraft.
Carol makes a brief season three appearance, and she🍸 creates a fake romantic story to explain how she met Ted. Near the end of the episode, the truth is revealed, and the show cuts to an in-gamꦺe WoW clip with two characters — a male draenei and female human — in Stranglethorn Vale arranging a coffee date.
WoW is actually often celebrated by players as bei❀ng the reason they met their significant others. But unfortunately for Ted, this budding romance met a quick end. Might as well get back to questing!
2 Jeopardy
A year after its launch, WoW was already popular enough to become a question on the Jeopardy 2005 College Champi💛onship. Under the category “Computer Games” for $1,000, the con🦄testants were asked, “This role-playing game came out in 2004 returns to the World of Azeroth, where heroes like Leeroy Jenkins do battle.”
Easy, right? There are so many hin🦄ts from Azeroth to Leeroy Jenkins that it’s hard to believe anyone would get this question wrong. Well, that’s exactly what happened. None of the three contestan🍬ts buzzed in and Alex Trebek was the one to reveal the answer: World of Warcraft.
1 🌠 South Park ﷽
&ldq🍒uo;Make Love, Not Warcraft” is one of the most memorable South Park episodes. It went on to win a Primetime Emmy Award and is widely considered the best video game episode on television. The episode begins wౠith Cartman, Kyle, Stan, and Kenny leveling up their Alliance characters when an overpowered ganker kills them and proceeds to kill other players in the game, even killing up to 5,000 players in the Arathi Highlands at one point.
The kids could easily call it quits, but they decide that they’re going to level up their characters by killing boars for low XP until they can take on the high-level player. For 21 hours a day over the course of two months, the kids are dedica෴ted to the grind and when they finally kill the other player, Cartman says his famous line, “Now we can finally play the game.”