National Geographic's Collectors Corner

Collaborative site for collectors, dealers, & anyone interested in our history.

Popular References to National Geographic

For many years we have tried to maintain a list of references made to
National Geographic in movies, TV shows, cartoons, and books.  Staff
members occasionally send us e-mails letting us know of something
they've come across and we add it to our database.  Now we'd love to
hear from you.  What follows is a stripped-down list from our
database--just titles with no explanatory text in the interest of saving
space.  Please look through the list and send us a note if you spot an
omission.  (Note: the list is roughly in chronological order.)  Thank you!

  1. It's A Wonderful Life
  2.  Esquire Magazine
  3.  Andy Griffith Show
  4.  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
  5. The New Yorker Magazine
  6. Badlands
  7.  Save the Tiger
  8. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
  9.  A Time to Die
  10.  Jaws
  11. One Day At A Time
  12.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
  13. Deep
  14.  Taxi
  15.  On Golden Pond
  16. Valley Girl
  17. Brighton Beach Memoirs
  18. Twilight Zone: The Movie
  19.  Jewel of the Nile
  20.  Calvin and Hobbes
  21. Far Side
  22.  100 Years : Spoofing the Geographic
  23.  Gorillas in the Mist
  24. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  25.  Seinfeld
  26. Joe Versus the Volcano
  27.  Northern Exposure: "Dreams,Schemes & Putting Greens" episode
  28.  Tremors
  29.  Mad About You
  30.  Frasier : Beloved Infidel
  31. Apollo 13
  32. Beetlejuice
  33. Bridges of Madison County
  34.  Waterworld
  35.  James and the Giant Peach
  36.  Flubber
  37. From the Earth to the Moon (Episode 6)
  38. That 70's Show
  39. "Late Night with David Letterman"
  40.  Trivial Pursuit Millenium Edition
  41. Better Than Sex
  42. Pay It Forward
  43. The Outer Limits (The Movie)
  44. The Simpsons
  45. Proof of Life
  46. Vertical Limit
  47. McBeal, Ally : Reach Out and Touch
  48. Nobody's Baby
  49. Sherman's Lagoon
  50. Six Feet Under
  51. The Royal Tenenbaums
  52. The Travel Detective
  53. West Wing
  54. Lord of the Kill
  55. Sherman's Lagoon
  56. Snow Dogs
  57. That's Life
  58. The Postwoman
  59. World Wrestling Entertainment Smackdown
  60. "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"
  61. Dead Zone
  62. Easter Island
  63. Jeopardy!






























































































































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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by George Thomas Wilson on June 25, 2015 at 9:27am

Cathy,

This is an awesome list!  I just happened to run across it last night.  I appreciate the effort involved.

Tom Wilson

Permalink Reply by Cathy Hunter on June 25, 2015 at 12:23pm

Hi Tom,

  So glad you are enjoying the list!

Best wishes,

Cathy

Permalink Reply by Scott T. Shier on June 30, 2015 at 9:21pm

One of my ever-favorite things to do is to always be alert visually, for NGM's on a bookshelf, or laying out on a table somewhere in a scene of a program (usually films, but also TV). 

Some off the top of my head that I have noted just recently....as in, seen on screen , not verbalized.

Parenthood (1990)

Freaks and Geeks (tv show, 1999/2000)

Seinfeld (early season, Jerry's hallway)

A Merry Friggin' Christmas (2014)

etc. , etc.

I've often wanted to jump up, pause the dvd, and take a picture to show here, haha.

Permalink Reply by George Thomas Wilson on July 1, 2015 at 10:51am

Scott,

I was planning on updating my Cultural Fixture post in the Outside Looking In group (especially the TV and Movie sections) to reflect Cathy's list (and now your additions).  It will obviously take some time but it is a labor of love.

Yours in Collecting,

Tom

Permalink Reply by George Thomas Wilson on October 5, 2015 at 12:47pm

Cathy,

Over the last three months, I've been trying to expand my list of cultural references to include most of your list.

During my search, I found a website of searchable movie quotes (it includes TV show as well).  By typing in "National Geographic" I found 256 references.  By typing in "Nat Geo" I found 8 more.  After eliminating NGC shows and tie-ins like PBS's NOVA, I still came up with over 100 movies and 100 TV episodes.  This site give a sentence or part of a sentence and the time of it's appearance.  Using this information I searched movie and TV scripts and, wherever possible to put that sentence into context.

One caveat of this search is that it doesn't cover what I like to call cameos by the magazine, i.e. appearances of a magazine or collection in a scene, but no actual reference.  I did find a few of these either as a written screen description or as a screen capture.

Feel free to update your database to reflect all of these additions, as well as the many magazine article I documented earlier.  All of these are listed in Scott's Group, Outside Looking In.

Tom Wilson

Permalink Reply by Cathy Hunter on October 14, 2015 at 8:31am

Tom,

  Thank you so much for letting me know about Scott's Group. That will be a handy reference for us.

Best wishes,

Cathy

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