- The episode title is based on the "No Child Left Behind Act", a federal law of education reform.
- The show that the Griffins are watching at the beginning of the episode is How I Met Your Father, a parody of both How I Met Your Mother and its co-star Neil Patrick Harris having then recently come out of the closet. Josh Radnor and Harris reprise their roles as Ted Mosby and Barney Stinson respectively.
- The scene where the students at Morningwood Academy beat Chris with socks full of money is similar to a scene from the film Full Metal Jacket.
- The scene where Peter and Ernie go out to dinner and then get into another fight is a homage to The Quiet Man where John Wayne and Barry Fitzgerald's character call a truce to their fight to share a drink, only to start fighting again when they both tried to pay the check.
- During Peter and Ernie's fight, the part where the subway hops the track and end up on the street is similar to a scene in the film Speed, where the protagonists try to stop a runaway subway by guiding it down an unfinished track and, eventually, up onto the street.
- The name of Morningwood Academy is a play on the phrase "morning wood."
- The school's sign is emblazoned with the phrase "No Irish" which is crossed out, and beneath that is written "Irish OK." This gag is in reference to the practice of anti-Irish discriminatory admissions which once prevailed at New England preparatory boarding schools, and the subsequent assimilation of Irish-Americans into the American establishment with the rise of the Kennedys and other such families.
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