Love wasn’t the only thing in the air in Saturday evening’s new Hallmark Channel holiday movie, Christmas in Notting Hill.
The flick, starring Sarah Ramos and William Moseley, featured a number of cheeky moments and pop culture callouts, including a scene about that was a direct response to the Apple TV+ hit’s dialogue about Hallmark movies.
In a season 3 episode of the Emmy favorite, Ted Lasso ( Jason Sudeikis) tells the team they’re being “so inoffensive we might as well be a Hallmark Christmas movie.” When the team looks perplexed, Roy Kent ( Brett Goldstein) asks what a Hallmark Christmas movie is.
“Hallmark Christmas movies are films that feature women from the big city falling in love with their childhood crushes,” Ted begins. “It’s usually some fella that owns a Christmas tree farm. Sometimes he’s also Santa Claus or a prince.”
Ted admitted, “They suck, but they’re great — but they also mostly suck, but they’re also kinda great. They’re good with the sound off.”
In Christmas in Notting Hill (which is good with the sound ON!), where Moseley plays a famous soccer player who falls for an American girl, it’s Ramos as Georgia who skillfully delivers a speech with a similar cadence, which you can watch exclusively above.
After Georgia’s father admits he spent the flight to London watching Ted Lasso, Graham jokes that the show depicts “exactly what it’s like to play professional football.” To which Georgia sassily says, “Your coach is an American football coach turned soccer coach? With no prior experience? Who bakes biscuits and makes motivational signs? Is heavy on the folksy charm and still doesn’t know what offside is?”
Graham quips, “Precisely. Minus the mustache.”
The clever moment was no accident.
“When we saw Ted Lasso’s Hallmark Christmas movies reference, we just happened to be filming in London on a movie where our male lead was a professional football player,” Samantha DiPippo, senior vice president of development and programming at Hallmark Media, tells PEOPLE. “We thought it would be fun to add in a few cheeky lines about Ted Lasso — all in good fun!”
Of course, the Ted Lasso moment wasn’t the only pop culture Easter egg in the film. At one point, Georgia’s father is seen reading a magazine — and it’s Horse and Hound, the publication Hugh Grant claims to write for in order to interview Julia Roberts in 1999’s Notting Hill.
Christmas in Notting Hill is available to stream on Peacock and will reair on Hallmark Channel on Wednesday, Nov. 29 at 10 p.m. ET.
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