Stanford in popular culture

Stanford University has been often mentioned in fictional works of popular culture.

In film

• In Avatar, Grace Augustine wears a Stanford t-shirt.
• Ray Stantz in Ghostbusters mentions that Stanford won't touch them "with a ten-meter cattle-prod."
• The 2001 film Das Experiment is based on the true story of the Stanford prison experiment.
• The 2010 film The Experiment is a remake of the 2001 film Das Experiment which was based on the true story of the Stanford prison experiment.
• In The American President, the President mentions that he went to Stanford.
• The movie Orange County is about a student who applies at enroll at Stanford but is rejected after his student counselor actually sends the wrong transcript to Stanford.
• In Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Ace claims to have attended Stanford Law school.
• Takagi in Die Hard graduated from Stanford Law School in 1962.
• In the 1942 movie The Spirit of Stanford, Stanford's quarterback Frank Albert actually played himself.
• The 1944 film Double Indemnity is about a wife who conspires with her lover to kill her husband in Palo Alto on his way to a Stanford reunion.
• The Stanford Band has a short appearance in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol.
• The main character of Antitrust is depicted as a Stanford graduate.
• Hillary Whitney in Beaches studies at Stanford.
• Gabriella in High School Musical 3: Senior Year is accepted at Stanford.
• Amy in The Social Network is a Stanford student.
• In the 2007 film The Bourne Ultimatum, Dr. Albert Hirsch, the Chief Medical Officer of the Special Research Division, earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford in 1968.

In literature

• CHERUB series character James Adams goes on to study at Stanford.

In television

• Star Trek character Jonathan Archer studied at Stanford.
• The opening sequence of Greek shows an aerial overview of the Stanford campus.
• The Simpsons contains several references to Stanford. Typically these references are derogatory since most of the Simpsons writers studied at Harvard.
  • In Brawl in the Family, Bart teases Lisa with "You're going to Stanford, you're going to Stanford..." after she is concerned whether being arrested reduces her chance to be accepted by an Ivy League university.
  • In Elementary School Musical, Martin makes a betting pool with other children to bet who will win the next Nobel Prize. The bets include Steve Harris, Richard Zare and W. E. Moerner who are all Professors at Stanford.
  • In Treehouse of Horror XXII, Lisa wears a cardinal t-shirt with the text "STANFORD ELEMENTARY" while giving Bart an Avatar body.
  • In The Food Wife, Lisa makes fun of the "lame, dead-on-arrival humor" of Stanford Band.
• Dana Scully in The X-Files earned her medical degree from Stanford University.
• In Chuck, the main character Chuck Bartowski is presented as a Stanford dropout.
• Sam Winchester in Supernatural begins the series as an undergraduate in Stanford
• In Grey's Anatomy, Cristina Yang holds a Doctor of Medicine from Stanford where her former boyfriend Colin Marlowe was a professor.
• Captain B. J. Hunnicutt in M*A*S*H graduated from Stanford.
• Kate Warner and Wayne Palmer in 24 have Stanford degrees.
• Stella (Ted's almost bride) in "How I Met Your Mother" attended Stanford as both an undergrad and medical school graduate.
• Detective Kate Beckett in Castle attended Stanford as a pre law undergrad.
• Julia in Parenthood attended Stanford for law school
• Lloyd in Entourage received his MBA from Stanford
• Rachel Zane in "Suits (TV Series)" gets accepted into Stanford to study Law

In theater

• Nina Rosario, a main character in In the Heights, is a scholarship recipient at Stanford but announces in Act I that she has dropped out. By the end of the last act, she has decided to accept her parents' financial help and reenroll.

See also

List of Stanford University people#Fictional Stanford alumni