Technically, Rashomon did not have a Rashomon plot. As in, the plot is not the way we think of it. The way it is parodied and played on, over and over again, in multiple shows. Still, that sort of “people remember things in different ways” plot is a staple of kids’ programming, at least in the US. Oh, not just kids’ programming—one of the best episodes of The X-Files uses the same structure for its first half. (Hello, early Luke Wilson role!) But there are a handful of classic movies that are riffed on all the time by kids’ shows, even when I’m not entirely convinced the showrunners are deliberately intended for parents to watch as well.

I mean, that’s what’s going on with Sesame Street. When you see Cookie Monster enter the remote town of Twin Beaks, it’s not because the show expects kids to be all-in on David Lynch. No more were they expecting kids my age to like I, Claudius and appreciate a good joke based on it. That was for our parents. And of course those are explicit parodies, not just “we’re going to go with this plot.” But there are a few movies that do show up a lot, either as parody or as inspiration.

Of course, when people do a Rear Window, they aren’t always right. But several shows have done a variant on Rear Window, where the person ends up witnessing things because they can’t move from where they are. And I think every chunk of Tales From Arcadia had at least one Rashomon episode. (I’ve only watched through Wizards once, because it’s not very good.) People frequently run in front of things like Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Several of his other action set pieces show up in shows.

Another popular thing in kids’ shows is genre conventions—if you aren’t doing noir, are you even doing a show? Even in shows where it doesn’t entirely make sense. There’s often a superhero episode, or at least references to superhero genre conventions. Horror movie tropes come into play when a kid is dealing with something they don’t like, even if it’s as innocuous as vegetables. A lot of shows deal in ’50s sci-fi. Or Star Trek. If kids are trying to escape from somewhere, it’s also in a parody of Escape From Alcatraz or The Great Escape or something.

Oh, I’m sure these are mostly aimed at adults, or stoned college students, or something. But they also do the job of teaching kids about film and TV vocabulary. I’m not planning on showing my kids Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf any time soon, but when I do, they’ll recognize the interaction from the “taking care of an egg” episode of DC Super Hero Girls. (If you only watch one episode of the show, make it that one.) The way the Predator and the Terminator see the world will also be familiar to them should they get to either of those movies. And they are much more likely to get to Sam Spade in the near future, and he and the people around him in search of a certain statue of a bird will come as old friends.

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