Millions of Americans first learned to read with Dick and Jane using the "whole word reading system." The dialogue was simple and repetitive. Only a few words were on each page; pictures conveyed the story. The language was effective; everyone who read the stories remembered sentences like "Look Jane, Look! Look at Spot! See Spot run. See Spot go. Go Spot, Go!" (see also the Wikipedia overview). Consequently, allusions to this stylized language are common, either directly as in the Vidlit Yiddish With Dick and Jane and this New York Times fitness article (PDF) or indirectly as in the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon below:

Calvin's satire of pretentious academic jargon is keyed to the simplicity and innocence of Dick and Jane
(Scanned image copyright 1993 by Bill Watterson and United Press Syndicate)

Naturally, there are also other allusions to Dick and Jane beyond the style of the language (cf. the film title Fun With Dick and Jane, originally from 1977 with George Segal and Jane Fonda, redone in 2006 with Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni). Dick and Jane may serve as metaphors for schoolchildren in general, as in Tina M. Prow's article on The Perils of Dick and Jane, or boys and girls symbolically, as in Carla Williams' Reading Deeper: The Legacy of Dick and Jane in the World of Clarissa Sligh. Web searches will also reveal more than one porno site which exploits the "name recognition" of Dick and Jane. However, allusions to Dick and Jane generally refer to the innocent youth and simple language portrayed in the elementary reading textbooks used by millions of American schoolchildren.

From the perspective of the 21st century, the textbooks tell an interesting story of the mid-20th century world in which many Americans were raised (for an overview see Reading With and Without Dick and Jane: The Politics of Literacy in 20th-century America). For Dick and Jane, night never came, knees never got scraped, parents never yelled and everything was fun. They lived in a trouble-free world of middle-class values in a safe, prosperous environment behind white picket fences. For many young baby boomers living in the new phenomenon of the middle-class suburbs, these optimistic stories may have felt close to their own everyday experience in living what was often then felt to be the "American Dream."

Through the decades the "look" of the Dick and Jane books changed. The pictures of baby buggies, tricycles, bicycles, clothing, Mom and Dad's cars and even dogs (Spot was changed from a terrier to a spaniel) all evolved with the fashions of the times. Dick and Jane's neighborhood also changed. In the 1960s, their exclusively white suburban world expanded to include more ethnic groups. However, in 1970, Scott, Foresman and Company stopped publishing Dick and Jane rather than to try to completely rewrite the basic books, which had survived a run of 40 years.