The songwriters had difficulty developing a song for Richard to sing to Tad Cooper, his pet dragon. Suddenly lyricist Glenn Slater recalled a longtime family joke about a song his wife composed called "Tina and the Loaf," which was loosely based on the theme to That Girl (1966) and she had used to coax their children into eat meatloaf. With that in mind, they decided to compose a ditty in the style of a 1960s sitcom theme song and "My Dragon Pal and Me" quickly resulted. Slater has cited this as his family's favorite song of the series.
The battle song between the giants and the dwarves is a nod to the musical "West Side Story".
Nick Frost's character, Andre the Giant, is a reference to the actor of the same name who played Fezzik in "The Princess Bride".
Roberta singing during the showdown between the dwarfs and giants is very similar to a scene in the movie Newsies which had songs written by Alan Menken. While the Newsies sang a mother looking for her son sang about loving her son.
First episode with Tad Cooper, the pet dragon