Mel Gibson turned down the chance to voice the parody version himself in this episode. He later admitted in an interview that he regretted the decision because he thought the episode was hilarious.
A joke about John Ritter's role in 8 Simple Rules (2002) was deleted from this episode because the writers found one of their own jokes too distasteful to broadcast, due to his death. It was replaced with a joke about George Lopez.
In one scene, Brian, Stewie, Tom Tucker, and Jake Tucker are together in Tom's house. All four of these characters are voiced by Seth MacFarlane, so this scene is essentially MacFarlane talking to himself. In the DVD commentary, they point this out themselves.
First episode after being cancelled for bad ratings.
In the opening scene, Peter lists 29 shows that FOX cancelled after short runs in the last few years. Not only is this a joke at how FOX cannot keep many shows around (Peter says that Family Guy itself was cancelled to make room for these "terrifc shows"), but the last mentioned, Greg the Bunny (2002), is a reference to a short-lived show starring Seth Green, the voice of Chris Griffin on Family Guy. Also, That '80s Show (2002), another show mentioned, ran a few episodes and was based on That '70s Show (1998), which stars Mila Kunis, the voice of Meg Griffin. Peter also mentions The Tick (2001), where Patrick Warburton, who voices Joe Swanson, played the title character, and Titus (2000), in which Alex Borstein, who voices Lois Griffin, made an appearance during one episode.