The entire episode is a parody of the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which is based on the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. The dance moves performed by the Grunka-Lunkas as they sing are all taken directly from the Oompa-Loompas in the movie, and the character of Glurmo is based on Gene Wilder's portrayal of Willy Wonka.
When the Professor is examining Bender with the F-ray, Bender's circuit-board says "6502", a reference to the 1975 MOS CPU. The 6502 was used in many popular early computers, such as the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore 64, Apple II, and more.
Glurmo's sudden appearance at the front of the rolling red carpet is a reference to Bugs Bunny's similar appearance as the King in Rabbit Hood.
The "Soylent Cola" joke is a reference to the 1973 science-fiction film Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston. The big surprise at the end of this film is that the most widely-distributed food, Soylent Green, is actually made out of people.
The Scrabble game between Leela and the Professor bears similarities to "tri-dimensional chess", as seen in Star Trek.
When Leela and the Professor are playing Scrabble, the Professor can spell the word "f u t u r a m" with his extra letters.
The cartoon gag in the opening sequence is the Tracey Ullman ShowSimpsons short, "Making Faces".
The Slurm Queen suggesting that Leela become the mascot of New Slurm and having it fail in order to bring back the original Slurm is a reference to Coca-Cola's infamous "New Coke" fiasco.
According to audio commentary, Glurmo's name was originally going to be "Slurmy Slonka".
Leela says "Something's rotten on the Planet Wormulon", a reference to the famous quote by Marcellus in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
While in the gift shop, Zoidberg is wearing a shirt written in Hebrew that reads "שלורם", which is pronounced "Shlurm".
Fry has apparently had heart problems in the past, as he apparently had at least three heart attacks while he was in high school.
Alienese[]
The Slurm contest rules written in Alienese say "The following species are ineligible: space wasps, space beavers, any other animal with the word "space" in front of it, space chickens, and the elusive yak-face".
The elusive yak-face is most likely a reference to a hard-to-find Star Wars collectible accidentally produced by Kenner. Since the character was originally just a background alien in Return of the Jedi for about three seconds, production was halted as soon as the oversight was discovered and the few that were made were sold in Canada and Europe.
The eye chart says:
N O S Q U I N T I N G F O U R E Y E S (No Squinting Four Eyes)
