While watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV, Bart doesn't recognize the balloon characters of Bullwinkle and Underdog. Homer chides him: "Don't you know anything?" Bart replies, "It wouldn't hurt 'em to use some cartoons made in the last 50 years." Just then, a Bart Simpson balloon appears on the TV screen. This episode aired on (U.S.) Thanksgiving Day, 1990, when a Bart Simpson balloon actually did appear in the parade for the first time.
The first occasion when Mr Burns unleashes the hounds.
After the centerpiece she made for Thanksgiving dinner is ruined by Bart, Lisa writes a poem beginning, "I saw the best meals of my generation destroyed..." This is a reference to the poem 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg, which begins, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked..." Ginsberg was said to be pleasantly amused by this reference.
The idea of Bart going up on the roof was suggested by George Meyer who used to go up on the roof himself when he had fights with his family.
The music Bart sings when he brings the turkey to the table is the music heard in the 20th Century Fox opening.