Secret of My Excess

• The title is a play on the movie The Secret of My Success.
• One of the working titles of the episode, "Attack of the 50 Foot Dragon", is a play on the movie title Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, and it hints to the episode's "giant monster rampaging through a city" theme that was popularized by the 1954 film Godzilla.
• The scene in which Spike wears the white hat and carries the ball is an allusion to The Godfather II, when Fanucci walks along the street also wearing a white hat and with an orange in his hand.
• The kidnapping of Rarity and subsequent aerial assault on Spike parallels scenes from the classic 1933 film King Kong.
• The line "Twilight, get my rope" was inspired by a 1980s Pace sauce commercial.[18]
• Spike' greed-induced transformation alludes to the origin of the dragons in Norse mythology, with Spike being a pastiche to Fafnir, a dwarf who transformed into a dragon after being consumed with greed.
• The song played at the beginning of the episode, while Twilight is organizing the books, is inspired by the Paul Dukas's symphonic poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The scene is a parody of the Walt Disney movie Fantasia, specifically on the scene where Mickey Mouse is using his powers to move everything around him.

Hearth's Warming Eve

• Some elements about the Heart's Warming Eve celebration mirror Christmas: holding a pageant that depicts the origins of the holiday; red and white candy canes; and decorating trees.
• The ponies in the past sequences sport a mixture of medieval and renaissance clothing, with ethnic German garb and Roman legionnaire armor (similar to that of the present day Equestrian Royal Guards) for the Earth Ponies and Pegasi, respectively; Spike also dons Renaissance garb as he narrates on stage.
• A creature similar to Discord is depicted fighting a Pegasus on a relief in the theater.
• Some of the music that plays towards the end is based on the English folk song "Greensleeves".
• Pinkie Pie's quote, "...I am just about to be brilliant," mirrors one of Donald O'Connor's lines in Singin' in the Rain. He sings the song "Make 'Em Laugh" in the film.
• The creatures in the play share their name and some characteristics with the Wendigo from myths in Algonquin-speaking tribes. They are strongly related to winter and starvation.
• Applejack's line, "Then, this is our fault; we three tribes," is a reference to the Christmas carol, "We Three Kings".
• The system established by the three tribes is identical to that of the three social classes of the Feudal system. The Earth Ponies represent the Peasants (farmers, craftsmen, and other occupations). The Pegasi represent the Knights, who protect the peasants and the higher classes. And the Unicorns represent the Church and Nobility, who dictate the actions of the lower classes and collect taxes from the peasants to pay the knights.

Family Appreciation Day

• The Smith Family, especially in regards to Granny Smith's father, mother and young Granny Smith herself, strongly resemble a few of the main characters from the original Little House on the Prairie TV series- Charles, Caroline and Laura Ingalls, respectively, though Young Granny's braided hair is blonde instead of red.
• The period dress of the citizens of Canterlot in Granny Smith's flashback are representative of human fashions circa the latter half of the 19th century.
• The Cutie Mark Crusaders manipulating a sleeping Granny Smith with a series of ropes to make it appear as if she was awake and speaking alludes to the film Weekend at Bernie's.
• In the beginning of the episode, Granny Smith frantically yells, "The zap apples are coming! The zap apples are coming!" This is a reference to the quote often, incorrectly, ascribed to Paul Revere, "The British are coming! The British are coming!".