Misty uses variations of several lines from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Richard III.
In the final scene where Meowth is asking Orville what the moon is like, he says "Had to be there huh?"; this may be a reference to Neil Armstrong who would allegedly tell unfunny jokes about the moon, and follow them up with "I guess you had to be there".
This episode's English title is taken from the song Fly Me to the Moon by Bart Howard.
Although Wilbur introduces himself in the original version, he doesn't in the dub.
Professor Oak mentions that scientists have debated whether or not the overweight Pidgey count as an evolution of the normal Pidgey ("evolution" in the long-term sense). This may mean that Pudgy Pidgey Isle is an allusion to the Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin observed multiple unique species of finches and developed his theory of evolution.