At the start of Beauty and the Beast (1991), the Beast slashes a portrait of his human self with his claws. Forty-two minutes of the movie’s runtime later, Belle comes across the damaged painting. The prologue feels so different from the rest of the film that seeing such a direct reference to it is quite unexpected.
One neat cross-media callback doubles as a Shout-Out to the Mata Nui Online Game, the fan-favorite web game that helped popularize the BIONICLE brand. Lewa asks Takua if he's ever flown a Gukko bird, to which he responds that he hasn't flown one by himself, but he's been a second once, referring to one of the MNOG's minigames. At the time, this was something of a Mythology Gag, as MNOG was not deemed part of the canon continuity. Later, partially because of this nod, the game was retroactively accepted as at least half-canon.
The movie makes it clear that it's not the first part of a story, but a continuation to the books and comics. The Turaga reference the Toa's recent victories (against the Bohrok swarms, some defeated Bohrok even make a cameo), and Makuta bemoans that the Matoran have repeatedly opposed him. In a fully animated and voice acted Deleted Scene, Makuta even elaborates on his past evil plans and the monsters the Toa have fought as he contemplates whether to continue the tactic.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget: The newspaper clippings show the aftermath of the pie machine explosion and Mrs. Tweedy's defeat.
An Extremely Goofy Movie has several. In the Goof Troop episode "Puppy Love", PJ got a crush on a girl after she recited her poetry. He does the same thing for the same reason in this movie. In the episode "Date with Destiny", Goofy went on a dancing date with one of Max's school staff members—he does the same thing here. The final scene has some to the first movie: the trophy engraving was reminiscent of what Max and Goofy said to each other when their relationship was at its tensest moment, and Bobby calls back to two jokes in one line when he uses the word "cheesa" to describe the pizza he's holding and pointedly calls it "scrumptious."
Elsa isn't convinced that Anna can handle the journey to Ahtohallan, since she lacks ice powers. Anna counters by reminding Elsa about her deeds in the first movie:
Anna: Excuse me, I climbed the North Mountain, survived a frozen heart, and saved you from my ex-boyfriend, and I did it all without powers.
Anna spent most of her childhood playing in the halls and imagining talking to the pictures. So she recognizes Mattias from them easily.
When Elsa turns to ice, she goes through similar steps as Anna when she suffered this fate at the end of the first film.
Hiccup makes Toothless an automatic tail fin so he can fly on his own which makes Astrid reference "Gift of the Night Fury", questioning that he made Toothless one before and he didn't want it then. Hiccup answers that Toothless didn't have a reason at that time, but he does now; he wants to follow and court the Light Fury.
After Hiccup and his gang bring a Crimson Goregutter on the island, it begins to play with a baby Gronckle Fishlegs is taking care of and accidentally knocks over some pole, producing Disaster Dominoes knocking over few buildings, just like at the beginning of the first movie after Hiccup shoots down Toothless.
The Light Fury's rescue of Hiccup is framed in exactly the same way as Toothless's rescue of Astrid in the first movie was: the human is tumbling through the air, gets caught, and then looks up to see the dragon ducking its head down to smile at them.
While being held prisoner by Grimmel, Ruffnut references her crush on Eret in the second movie (saying that that ship has sailed and she's over him now), and also mentions Fishlegs and Snotlout fighting over her while expressing her misgivings about both of them.
Hiccup kills Grimmel in a similar manner to how he tried to kill Krogan during their first encounter (i.e. untying his prosthetic leg).
In the epilogue Astrid rushes past Hiccup on Stormfly and looks back, silently challenging him to a race. It's the same interaction they had at the end of the second film, and Hiccup even gives his son a look as if to say: "some things never change."
After Agent Classified drugs the penguins, he has them shipped to the North Wind's most remote safehouse. Its location: Madagascar.
After they break out of the box, and tumble into the cockpit of a commercial plane, Skipper briefly flirts with a bobblehead doll.
In the first Madagascar 1 movie, Skipper asks Kowalski what's written in the box they're in and he says he doesn't understand because he can't read. In this film, during the scene where Kowalski is checking the manual of the North Wind's jet, he says "No, still can't read".
As in Thou Shalt Not Die, the Imperial Japanese Army temporarily takes over the Great Imperial Theater.
The final shot is of Sakura walking through the cherry blossoms at Ueno Park. This recalls the scene where Sakura does the same thing in the first Sakura Wars game.
Sing: When Buster decides Johnny should play the piano for his performance, Johnny tells him, "I haven't played piano since I was a kid." When Johnny is performing, one of the lines he sings is: "feelin' like a little kid".
In The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, SpongeBob teaching Plankton the concept of teamwork, with Plankton being unable to even pronounce the word is certain to remind some viewers of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes like "F.U.N" and "Single Cell Anniversary" where SpongeBob had trouble teaching Plankton the concepts of fun, friendship, and love.
Strange Magic: Marianne and the Bog King's duet of the title song is full of these from Marianne's first visit to the Dark Forest. The various features of the forest that had frightened her then are now shown to be harmless or beautiful.
Bridget wearing a white jumpsuit with roller skates at her wedding to King Gristle Jr. is a callback to her wearing a pink jumpsuit and going roller skating together on their first date.
John Dory shouts Stop the Wedding is similar to when Branch in a flashback runs then shouts to his fellow Trolls that the Bergen's are coming at a weeding.
John Dory, Spruce and Clay being in the same stunned silence as Poppy was when she found out about their grandmother's fate after Branch told her about the loss of his happiness and his reasons for not singing. Also, in the same scene, John Dory has the same facial expression that Poppy did.
Floyd regains hope of stopping Velvet and Veneer's plan to take talent from other Trolls, including his older brothers, through Branch is a callback to when he brought hope back to Poppy and their fellow Trolls in stopping the Bergens from eating them.
The adventure to save Floyd change John Dory for the better is similar to how the adventure to save Poppy's friends did for Branch, as it reignited their inner Troll and befriending Poppy reopen their hearts.
Early on, Mei's friends ask her to come to karaoke with them but she declines due to it being cleaning day with Ming. The movie closes with Mei finally going karaokeing with them, having developed a healthier relationship with Ming and gotten her approval.
Mei and Miriam's first and last scenes together both involve them bumping butts. The first time, Mei is in her human form and it only involves her and Miriam. The second time, Mei is in her panda form and Miriam, Priya, Abby, and Tyler all join in together.
After Ming embarrasses Mei at the Daisy Mart, she tries to console Mei in the car by helping to comb back a bit of stray hair that had fallen in her face. Mei does the same when she comes across the teenage version of Ming in the astral plane in her own moment of grief.
During their walk to the first sealing ceremony, Mr. Gao tells Mei what's actually sung isn't important, only that the person sings from their heart (for instance, he says he prefers to sing Tony Bennett songs). During the impromptu ceremony to re-seal the panda spirits of the other Lee women, their singing alone isn't enough, but then 4*Town joins in with their opening number, which grants the magic the power needed to work.
