Sam Neill was a fan of the show and considers recording this episode to be a "high-point" of his career.
Apu protects the Kwik-E mart with a rifle in a way similar to many of the images of Korean Grocery store owners during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
One scene of the episode features Kent Brockman reporting on the burglaries. David Mirkin said this was a joke the staff enjoyed doing because it pointed out how negative and mean-spirited news broadcasts can be, and how they are seemingly "always trying to scare everybody" by creating panic and depression.
Homer's line "So I said, Look buddy, your car was upside-down when I got here. And as for your grandmother, she shouldn't have mouthed off like that!" is a reference to Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find".
The sequence of Homer riding the bomb as it hits the ground is a parody of the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Additionally, episode that aired directly before this one was titled $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling) (1993)