The drinking bird has been used in many fictional contexts to automatically press buttons. In The Simpsons episode "King-Size Homer", Homer used one to repeatedly press a key on a computer keyboard. Herb Powell also showed one to Homer as part of a demonstration regarding inventions in the episode "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?". Two of them were used in the 1990 film Darkman to set off explosions. Drinking birds have appeared as part of a Rube Goldberg machine in the film Pee-wees Big Adventure and the Family Guy episode "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter". In Bojack Horseman' an Alcoholics Anonymous attendee resembles a Drinking Bird.
Drinking birds have been featured as plot elements in the 1951 Merrie Melodies cartoon Putty Tat Trouble and the 1968 science fiction thriller The Power. They have also had minor appearances in several movies and TV shows, including mission briefings in two episodes of TVs original Mission: Impossible, the Woody Allen movie Sleeper, the 1979 science fiction film Alien (also referenced in Alien 3 and Alien: Covenant), the 1989 comedy When Harry Met Sally..., the 2005 film Robots, the 2008 film Max Payne, the 2010 film Megamind, the 2021 film Fortress',
and episodes of the American TV shows The Simpsons, Mad Men and Ed, Edd n Eddy. Episode 508 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 features a spoof of the drinking bird called the Bobbing Buzzard, which runs on carrion instead of water. In S4E11 of the comedy series Arrested Development, a delusional character hears the voice of God speaking through a drinking bird. In Episode 7 of Season 2, Headspace, of Ted Lasso on AppleTV, a non-functioning drinking bird is prominently displayed on the desk of the team psychologist.
Among video games, the drinking bird appeared as the "dunkin dragon" in the Sierra game Quest for Glory (1989) and in the Gremlin Interactive game Normality (1996). Porygon2, a Pokémon introduced in Generation II (Pokémon Gold and Silver), resembles a drinking bird, and in 3D Pokémon games, it moves its head in a "dipping" motion. More recently, in the game Quantum Conundrum (2012), one of the main gameplay mechanics is a drinking bird that is used as a timer to press buttons. In the 2014 Creative Assembly video game Alien: Isolation, drinking birds are frequently seen on desks across the games main setting, Sevastopol Station.
In Australian contemporary playwright John Romerils play The Floating World, drinking birds are a symbolic prop which represent the progression of Les insanity. They are referred to as "dippy birds" and are perhaps used to symbolize insanity due to Romeril's opinion that they are insane for their uselessness and repeatability.