9 Beloved Easter Eggs That Make Zero Sense When You Think About Them

9 ‘Ninja Rap’ in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’

Kicking things off with a recent example, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem  sees Michelangelo smashing into a car that has Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” playing on the radio. That song, of course, is from 1991’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and I, being a hardcore TMNT fan, was thrilled to hear it in this new movie. But then I began thinking about it and quickly questioned why this song exists in this Ninja Turtles universe.

The film just plays the “Go ninja, go ninja go!” part, but had the lyrics continued, they would have hit things like, “Gonna rock and roll this place, with the power of the Ninja Turtle bass” and “Have you ever seen a turtle get down?” This song is clearly about turtles of the ninja, teenage and mutant variety; yet, at this part in the film, they’re still sewer-dwelling recluses. Within the context of this world, how did the singer know about them? Had he, to turn his own query on him, seen a turtle, in fact, get down? If so, where? Furthermore, separate from everything else, who is unironically listening to Vanilla Ice B-sides in 2023?

8 Cyclops’ Yellow Spandex Joke in ‘X-Men’

In the first X-Men, Wolverine makes a perfectly reasonable jab at his teammates’ costumes, which are peak “HEY, REMEMBER HOW MUCH YOU LOVED THE MATRIX?” era of design. Amid Logan’s complaining, Cyclops smirks and asks, “What would you prefer, yellow spandex?”

The joke is aimed at the nerds in the audience who had hoped for more comic book-faithful X-Men suits, but within the film’s context, it makes zero sense for Cyclops to say this. Did Professor X initially try yellow spandex for the gang, with this being a callback? Or did Wolverine, who’s only ever seen dressed like a divorced dad, somehow advocate for spandex off-screen? 

The whole joke is not only perplexing and unfunny, but from set pics we’ve seen from Deadpool 3, the premise is entirely wrong. That yellow spandex is dope as hell.

7 Stan Lee’s ‘Captain Marvel’ Cameo

Like the “Ninja Rap” Easter egg, I loved this one at first. Being a big Kevin Smith fan, seeing Stan Lee reading the Mallrats script in Captain Marvel was a great callback to a Stan Lee cameo from before Stan Lee cameos were a thing. But it completely crumbles upon even the slightest examination. Among all the comic-book references in Mallrats, Lee, who plays himself, mentions Spider-Man and the Hulk, two characters that Captain Marvel will go on to meet. So what, exactly, is in that script that Sten Lee is reading in the Captain Marvel movie? Also, what non-Marvel works of Stan Lee’s became popular enough for him to get movie spots inside of the MCU? Stripperella?

6 The Pizza Planet Truck in ‘Brave’ and ‘The Good Dinosaur’

Originally appearing in Toy Story, Pixar has hidden the Pizza Planet truck in nearly every one of its movies. Usually, this is a clever callback that simply means the Pizza Chain exists in several different realities, which is totally fine. But in Brave, which takes place in 10th century Scotland, the Pizza Planet truck shows up as a wood carving by the Witch, about 1,000 years before the first automobile. 

If you can excuse that one by saying she’s a witch so maybe she has some cosmic wisdom, fine, but the Pizza Planet truck’s cameo in The Good Dinosaur makes even less sense. In the opening, a tiny Pizza Planet truck can be seen floating in space along with a bunch of rocks, one of which ends up being the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs. While I might buy a Pizza Planet truck as space debris in the post-apocalyptic future of Wall-E, I can’t understand how a Pizza Planet truck ended up in space 65 million years ago.

5 Nemo’s Cameo in ‘Brother Bear’

Disney’s forgettable Brother Bear is about Alaskan natives, and during a fishing scene, you can spot Nemo from Finding Nemo in their net. Here’s the thing: Clownfish are a strictly saltwater fish and tropical, so Nemo would be dead twice over in an Alaskan stream.

4 Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Kermit in ‘The Little Mermaid’

Another case of dead Disney characters. During King Triton’s grand entrance, you can catch near-microscopic cameos from Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck, all of whom would be drowned at the bottom of the ocean. Kermit the Frog is also hidden in the crowd, but since he’s an amphibian, I’ll allow it.

3 The E.T. Aliens in ‘Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’ (and/or Yoda in ‘E.T.’)

Taken independently, both of these Easter eggs are fine. I have no issue with the E.T. aliens having a cameo in The Phantom Menace, and I kind of like it when E.T. bumps into a kid in a Yoda costume in E.T. However, when you put these two together, everything breaks down. If Star Wars is just a movie in the E.T. universe, how the hell are E.T. aliens in one of the movies? Or, if it’s all in the same reality, how did a kid know who Yoda was if Star Wars happened “long ago in a galaxy so far, far away?”

2 The Flares in ‘Jurassic World’

Jurassic World is filled with fan service, and most of it works, but one thing bugs me. When we see the T. rex feeding in Jurassic World, they shoot a flare near the goat to get the T. rex’s attention. This is obviously a callback to the flares in Jurassic Park, but it is utterly pointless here. As we learned in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, “(Tyrannosaurs) could scent up to 10 miles.” This means Rexy could smell that goat with no problem. The only thing the flares provide is a fire hazard — although, considering the rest of the park’s history, that may actually be on brand.

1 Everything the Genie Says in ‘Aladdin’

Who doesn’t love a good William F. Buckley impression? How about Ed Sullivan or Señor Wences? The thing is, everything Genie says in Aladdin — from his Rodney Dangerfield impression to his Groucho Marx jokes — has no logic appearing in approximately 10th-century Baghdad (the basis for Agrabah). That said, Genie does have “phenomenal cosmic power,” which possibly means he has knowledge of all time and space, including like who the hell William F. Buckley, Ed Sullivan and Señor Wences are many, many centuries before the rest of the world has been introduced to them.