All The Pop Culture And Meme References In Paramount Plus' Viral Super Bowl Commercial Explained

In most commercials for the streaming platform Paramount Plus (or Paramount+), a wide range of Paramount's many properties are shown, with little references to each of the show's lore and well-known jokes. In the one designed specifically for the Super Bowl coming up this year, however, these references are specifically chosen intentionally with a few having their roots deeply centered in meme culture.

If you watched the commercial and you were a little confused about what's going on or why it's currently gaining so much praise online, we got you covered better than the 49ers passing defense in this explainer.

What's Going On With The Paramount Plus Super Bowl Commercial Going Viral?

In the commercial, a group comprised of Paramount assets are trying to climb to the top, or the "paramount," of the mountain, with the particular obstacle of a sheer cliff being in their way.

Tua Tagovailoa, the Miami Dolphins quarterback, claims that he could throw a football to the top, which if a rope was attached would be how they continue their ascent.

The closest thing to a football nearby is Arnold from Hey Arnold!, who is then picked up by Patrick Steward and thrown while the song "Higher" by Creed plays in the background.

What Are All The References That Make It So Viral?

The premise of Tua Tagovailoa saying that he could throw a football to the top of a mountain echoes a viral quote from the Paramount distributed movie Napoleon Dynamite in which the character Uncle Rico claims that he could throw a football over a mountain.

This phrase would often be brought up whenever a conversation about a player's arm strength would happen online, with many people chiming in to say that the player isn't better than Uncle Rico, similar to the meme "Can He Beat Goku?"

In the show Hey Arnold!, one of the most common things said about him is that he has a football-sized head, which became popular in the various Hey Arnold memes that came from the show over the years.

Even within the cartoon, the characters are shown playing football multiple times. While in the show Arnold takes the role of the quarterback, throwing the ball, this commercial has it flipped where he's the ball being thrown.

As Patrick Stewart, who is now in old-fashioned football gear, gets ready to throw Arnold, the song "Higher" by Creed starts playing. Creed has seen a notable spike in meme attention after their Thanksgiving Halftime Show became a viral hit again two decades after it happened.

The song, which has been used in various TikToks and sung by content creators in recent years, has this usage mirrored by the actors adding in their own version of it.

The oldest reference of the bunch is actually made by Patrick Stewart when he berates Drew Barrymore. In the split second in which he tells her to shut her face, he's making one of the oldest meme references still on the internet.

In the show Star Trek: The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart and the crew shout at Wesley, asking for him to "shut up," similarly to how Patrick does it to Barrymore decades later.