When Lisa is figuring out the puzzle, one of the clues she rules out is that it's not one of Prince's names, a reference to the period between 1993 and 2000 that Prince changed his name to a symbol and was known as "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince" (or simply "The Artist").
Lisa's story is similar to the book, Flowers For Algernon, where a man writes in a journal about his slide into mental retardation (the season 12 episode "HOMЯ" would follow a similar plot that Flowers For Algernon does).
Jasper's subplot calls to mind the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, held annually in Nederland, Colorado. The events of this festival are in homage to Grandpa Bredo, a cryogenically-frozen corpse who, since 1989, has remained in stasis inside a Tuff Shed and inspired two documentaries. It is unknown whether this festival inspired the scenario.
Before Grampa tells Marge how to cut his hair, Marge uses the scissors to try and cut Grampa's hair, but she actually doesn't cut any.
When Lisa writes in her diary about her decreasing intelligence, the end of her arm is for a few seconds drawn over her necklace so that a bead looks incomplete.
After Lisa's speech, Kent Brockman is colored differently.
Homer and Bart's candy bars initially have many different colors of wrappers, but after Lisa imagines her potential future, all of the candy bars have red wrappers.
The "offensive baseball cap" is colored green when the Flanders children try to read it. However, it is colored blue when The Rich Texan enters the shop.
Luann van Houten is shown with Kirk, even though this episode (in both production and broadcast order) comes after Luann's divorce and her makeover.
The scene where Lisa imagines herself as a morbidly obese redneck is similar to Bart's fantasy of him being a lardo on a workman's comp in "King-Size Homer". In the fantasy Lisa wears Homer's Muumuu and in both fantasies Bart and Lisa have southern accents.
