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Horror movies: The tapes in Tucker’s video collection, (which he uses to taunt and train the devil dogs), are:

• Prom Night (1980) - a slasher movie starring Halloween's Jamie Leigh Curtis about a hooded killer who’s avenging the death of a bullied young girl.
• Prom Night IV - Deliver Us From Evil (1992) - pseudo-sequel to Prom Night, about a homicidal priest who goes on the rampage after waking from a thirty-year coma! (Presumably Prom Night II - Hello Mary Lou and Prom Night III - The Last Kiss were out when Tucker visited Big Lou’s video store!)
• Pump Up The Volume (1990) - campus drama about a high school student (played by Christian Slater) who hosts an incendiary pirate radio show. The film featured Seth Green (Oz) and Juliet Landau (Drusilla).
• Pretty In Pink (1986) - John Hughes movie about the adolescent struggles of a misfit teenage girl (Molly Ringwald).
• Carrie (1976) - influential movie about a young woman (Sissy Spacek) whose powerful telekinetic powers are unleashed at the school prom. The film is also a name-checked in Buffy’s line "Gotta stop a crazy from pulling a Carrie at the prom". The film is based on Stephen King’s first novel, published in 1974.

Musical mayhem: Several songs are referred to, either directly (Sister Sledge’s 1979 hit We Are Family), or indirectly (Prince’s 1999 (1982), in Buffy’s line "Now I'm gonna lock you in here, and then I'm gonna party like it's ...[1999]"). The song that lures the devil dogs back towards the prom is Kool and the Gang’s biggest hit, 1980’s Celebration. The song that Angel and Buffy dance to at the end of the episode is The Sundays’ Wild Horses (a late addition to their 1992 album Blind, Wild Horses is a cover version of a track on the 1971 Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers).

Timeless Angel: Buffy’s assertion that Angel is 243 years old again contradicts the continuity mentioned in Becoming - Part One, (which states that Angel became a vampire in 1753). In Earshot, Some Assembly Required and Reptile Boy, Angel’s date of birth is given as 1755 or 1756.

Dressing up games: Cordelia’s presence at the April Fools dress shop (in Choices) is clarified, setting up Xander’s touching act of kindness later in the episode.

Bloodthirsty: Joyce’s line to Angel "You don't drink? Beverages, I mean?" may be a nod to a famous quote from Universal’s 1931 film version of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. In a scene where the Count is entertaining his lawyer, Renfield, he says "I never drink… wine"!