The episode's title is derived from a combination of the
Möbius strip and
Herman Melville's 1851 novel,
Moby-Dick. Perhaps citing the latter, repeated comparisons are made between Leela and
Captain Ahab of
Moby-Dick. Some of the artwork associated with the space-whale's appearances is reminiscent of that of the cartoon artist
Jean Giraud, who uses the name 'Moebius'. The planet where the crew goes to pick up the memorial statue, Xenotaph 3, is a pun on the word
cenotaph and the prefix
xeno-. The spaceship graveyard in the Bermuda Tetrahedron contains many spaceships from popular culture, including Discovery One from
2001: A Space Odyssey,
Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 from the television series
Lost, the Jupiter II from the science fiction television series
Lost in Space, the spaceship from the animated television series
Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, the spaceship commonly seen on albums by
Electric Light Orchestra,
Journey and
Boston, an
Apollo Lunar Module with the ascent and descent stages still attached, an
Apollo Command/Service Module labeled "
Apollo 100", and
Skylab. There are also two spaceships named after two popular GPS brands:
Garmin and
TomTom. The
Fourth Doctor from the British
science fiction television series
Doctor Who, as portrayed by
Tom Baker, makes a cameo appearance emerging from the body of the four-dimensional space whale near the end of the episode. The Monolith from
2001: A Space Odyssey also makes an appearance. The scene where the crew find and enter the old Planet Express ship (whose crew's fate is unknown) is similar to a scene and the theme of the film
Sunshine. In the scene where Bender is on the lookout nest and sees the space whale emerge from the 4th dimension and exhales (breathing out a shape resembling a
Julia set); Bender reports to Leela; "Look, off in the distance, it's exhaling!", Leela commands Bender to use "boaty talk", Bender sighs and rephrases what he says into, "Thar' she blows!", a popular phrase that was used in the
Moby-Dick novel. In the scene where the Planet Express crew are 'present' in the 4th dimension, their words are said forwards in time and backwards. Hermes expresses he can see sideways into time; Amy says "Gee, I see CGI". While Fry uses a palindrome phrase, "Poop. Heh heh", Bender instead experiences a looping conga line of Benders. Then as the space whale breaks through the 4th dimension, the Benders cascade back into one. Disappointed, Bender sighs in sadness and claims that it was 'the greatest
uncountably infinite bunch of guys I ever met'. In the scene where the Planet Express crew are, in Hermes' words, 'in the belly of the beast', Fry uses a reference of two characters from different books;
Jonah, from the Old Testament/Tanakh; and
Pinocchio, when he is swallowed by The Terrible Shark. Both characters that have been in the belly of a large whale/fish. The scene where Leela and the other crew members emerge from the whale's mouth is reminiscent of the final scene in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind where the
alien abductees emerge from the mothership. Lando Tucker, the captain of the first Planet Express crew, is likely a reference to
Lando Calrissian, former captain of the
Millennium Falcon and
Charles "Trip" Tucker III, chief engineer of the
NX-01 Enterprise. Also, his initials, LT, are the reverse of Leela's, TL. During the chase for the whale, Leela tells Amy "Negative, Sailor Moon", an obvious reference to the
anime series of the same name. Towards the end of the episode, Inez Wong says, "My days of joy and luck are over. Guess I gotta quit that club." This is a reference to
The Joy Luck Club, a novel by Amy Tan about the mother-daughter relationships in a group of Chinese American Immigrant families. Voice actor Lauren Tom played the role of Lena St. Clair in the film adaptation. When the ship enters the Bermuda Tetrahedron, Leela mentions "Tickle Me Elmo's Fire", a combination of
St. Elmo's fire and
Tickle Me Elmo, a popular children's toy from the 1990s. Right before the episode ends, while the Planet Express crew and others, who have emerged from the space whale, are off screen, apparently killing it, Zoidberg is approached by Candy, who seductively hints at a past relationship; Zoidberg runs a comb through his hair and styles it the same way as
The Fonz, and ends the episode with his famous catchphrase, "Aaaay!" ==Reception==