M. C. Escher in popular culture

The idea of Shahram Mokri's 2013 film Fish & Cat came from Escher's paintings.[1] The director gives a change in the perspective of time in one single shot.

In Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014), Sir Lancelot, Teddy Roosevelt, and Larry Daley enter the painting Relativity, and experience the same strange gravity featured in the painting.[2]

In Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), Escher's art is painted on several walls, as well as the main location of the film being on the fictitious "Escherstrasse", an obvious nod to the artist.

The film Labyrinth (1986) features a room based on the painting Relativity.[3]

The slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) features a pastiche of House of Stairs or Relativity conjured up by Freddy Krueger in his dream dimension,[4] referred to in the script as the "Escher Maze", where it is described as "an Escheresque, expressionistic landscape" and "an insane, logic-defying world where water runs uphill and stairs and doors stand at impossible angles to one another."[5]

The Comedy Central animated series Drawn Together has a first-season episode, "Clara's Dirty Little Secret", where Clara believes she is pregnant, and Toot suggests that she fall down some stairs. Clara thinks of a suitable room and leads them to the "M. C. Escher room", where Toot pushes Clara down (and up, around and back down) a flight of stairs.

The FOX animated series Family Guy has alluded to Escher on two occasions. In "Brian Goes Back to College", Stewie and Brian share a room where Stewie puts up a framed print of Relativity, which he calls "Crazy Stairs." He then breaks it while playing Ultimate Frisbee and asks "Oh no, did that hit crazy stairs?". A later episode, "No Meals on Wheels", features Peter complaining that the fact that his new restaurant is attracting paraplegics "is weirder than that rap video by M.C. Escher." Escher is then depicted inside Relativity dressed like MC Hammer in "U Can't Touch This". and rapping, "Going up the stairs and going down the stairs and going up the stairs and going down the stairs and going up the sideways stairs."

On the SyFy sci-fi series Warehouse 13, Escher is said by Leena to be one of the architects, along with Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, who designed the Warehouse. The Escher Vault's design resembles the lithograph Relativity. Inside this vault, the stairwells and walls are constantly moving. Anyone not wearing specially designed glasses run the risk of being lost forever once inside. H.G. Wells is the only known individual to have successfully navigated the Escher Vault without glasses, instead using her Inperceptor Vest to retrieve personal items stored within.

In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Interdimensional Field Trip", Sabrina, the classmate of Star falls in a construction similar to Relativity.

The Rick and Morty episode "Morty's Mind Blowers" opens with the titular characters fleeing from a humanoid creature set in a place similar to Relativity.

The Futurama episode "I, Roommate" features Relativity as one of the living spaces Fry and Bender are considering living in.

Escher is alluded to in the Phineas and Ferb'" episode "Gaming the System" in which Candace is found in an environment similar to Relativity.

The Final Space episode "Chapter Three" features a construct alluding to Escher.

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yami Yugi's mind in the Millenium Puzzle is represented as a construction similar to Relativity. It is a way to emphase the fact that the character doesn't remember anything and so, wander in a labyrinth of wonders. Some stairs even leads to doors which hide some traps behind.

In the city building game Afterlife, Hell's ultimate punishment for Envy is called the Escher pit and is designed to torture souls by having them all be given different punishments, and after a few days are allowed to switch with a neighbor, thinking he / she is better off, only to find that all punishments are worse than the last. The outside slightly resembles Relativity.

In AdventureQuest Worlds, the first lord of chaos is Escherion, who has the ability to invert objects and lives in a castle with an inside similar to "Relativity".

In the Psygnosis game Lemmings, the 18th level of "Taxing" is named "Tribute to M.C. Escher", as the solution involves building a zigzag stairway slightly reminiscent of Relativity.

In God of War III, 'Hera's Garden' is a Escher inspired puzzle in which the player must manipulate various objects and the camera perspective to guide protagonist Kratos to the exit.

During the last decades several video games have been released, some of which are more or less inspired by the art of M.C. Escher. Some games borrow the graphical art style; some games contain game mechanics that are heavily influenced by the artist while others are simply put tributes to the works of M.C. Escher.[6]

The cover of Mike Oldfield's Boxed (1976) quotes the theme of two of Escher's works, i.e. "Gallery" and "Other World".[7][8]

The cover of British band Mott the Hoople's self-titled debut album features a colorized reproduction of Escher's lithograph Reptiles.

In the video "Around the World" (1997) of Daft Punk, men and women, dressed like mummies similar to those in Escher's painting, perpetually walk around on a stair.

"Escher", a song on Teenage Fanclub's album Thirteen, with lyrics that deal with disorientation.

The song "Mansion Party" by Ninja Sex Party features the line "Take an upside-down left at the M.C. Escher Stairs" and the song's animated music video shows a scene similar to that of Relativity.

Andrew Lipson created a Lego version of Relativity.[9]

In 1981, Austria issued a postage stamp featuring Escher's Impossible Dice Construction[10] and a 1998 Netherlands stamp illustrated a portrait of the artist alongside one of his works.[11][10]

In 2017, four combs and 244 steps from old wooden-stepped escalators at Wynyard railway station, Sydney, Australia, were "refashioned into a soaring crisscrossing tangle reminiscent of an Escher puzzle" named 'Interloop', designed by local artist Chris Fox and hanging from a ceiling above one of the new sets of escalators.[12][13][14]