Though intended strictly as a spoof of circa-1952 domesticity, the cartoon's theme of a B-29 competing against Mach 1-capable jets reflected a building debate within the US Air Force then and later over the utility of piston-engined aircraft in the age of jets. In real life the B-29 that tries to reenlist in the Air Force would not have been rejected; the Air Force assigned B-29s and similar piston-engined aircraft to missions such as tactical and counterinsurgency bombing, photo-reconnaissance, and search-and-rescue.
The husband and wife planes repeatedly saying "John!" and "Mary!" is a reference to a 1951 soap opera parody called "John and Marsha", which consisted of the title characters (both played by Stan Freberg) doing nothing but repeating each other's names with intonations to reflect their constantly changing moods.
When John arrives at the airfield, he asks another, much older prop plane if he is flying in the race today. That plane, with the corn cob pipe, Officer's Military Cap, five gold stars and "Bataan" on his side, is a caricature of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, and the old plane paraphrases the famous line from MacArthur's farewell address to Congress on 19 April 1951, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away." The older propeller plane was named "Bataan" because a Lockheed VC-121A Constellation named "Bataan" was the personal aircraft of General Douglas MacArthur during the 1950-1953 Korean War, during the time this animated short was produced.
The score for this cartoon was featured on the audio CD "Tom & Jerry & Tex Avery Too!".
The box of cereal that Junior is eating is Bablum, a take on the real baby food called Pablum.