Believe It Or Not, ‘iCarly’ Actually Spoofed ‘The Wire’ For One Of Its Episodes

There are a lot of hidden jokes and references in children’s shows that are intended to go over the heads of the audience, mostly because the audience consists of children, presumably. It happens with popular shows all the time, like when The Fairly Odd Parents did a Seinfeld spoof or that time that Scooby-Doo got stuck in the Black Lodge. Sure, kids don’t understand those types of references, but it still gives their babysitters and/or parents a good chuckle.

Now that it’s easy to go back and watch all of your favorite childhood shows thanks to streaming, maybe you got the bright idea to curl up with some hot cocoa and watch the classic Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly, and now that you’re an adult, you realized that a lot of the bits you thought were weird as a kid were actually just references to other famous shows and movies. And you’re not alone in that!

Recently, a clip of iCarly went viral as a shot-for-shot remake of an iconic (and heartbreaking) scene from The Wire. The show spoofs the scene where Michael kills Snoop in season five of the HBO drama. Of course, as it is a children’s show, the teens are playing assassins with mini paintball guns, which is how the “killing” happens.

This specific episode of iCarly aired in January of 2010, a little over a year after that particular moment from The Wire, which is definitely not for children. But it’s likely that the writers of iCarly wanted to pay homage to their favorite show because The Wire is everybody’s favorite show at one point in their lifetime. The episode also makes various references to other scenes, like the “here’s Johnny” moment from The Shining that has been replicated oh so many times.

Now that all of the original viewers of iCarly are mostly grown up and watching The Wire for the first time, they are in for a real treat! Of course, iCarly is also in the second season of its revival on Paramount Plus, so at this point, they should be doing some Better Call Saul jokes.