The hotcakes that Lisa serves Oliver and Tony were actually oatmeal cookies.
Lisa compares Tony to David Niven, a British actor who often played romantic and debonair characters with impeccable etiquette.
Tony quotes from "Concord Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a poem that depicts the clash between American and British forces on 19 April 1775, a clash reputed to be the very first of the Revolutionary War. Tony recites the opening stanza that includes in its fourth line the phrase "shot heard round the world."
When the wind is right, the conversations at the Douglas farm carry all over the valley. That's why everyone thinks Lisa had a baby; they overhead a conversation about boiling some water.