Lisa's complaint on how Bart manages to do the writing every week for detention is a reference to the Chalkboard gag Bart does in nearly every title sequence.
In the promos for this episode, there is a scene where Lisa and Nelson ride a bike together. This isn't in the actual episode, but is included on the season eight DVD set as a deleted scene.
Lisa says "crumb bums" in this episode, an expression not often used by the likes of her.
Cultural references
The episode title is both a reference to the phrase "Date with Destiny" and a reference to the 1985 film Back to the Future, where George McFly mixes up the words "destiny" and "density."
Homer's doughnut "sprinkles" are made up of 13 M&M's (5 brown, 4 light orange, and 4 yellow), 3 Jolly Ranchers, a Twizzler, and a Mounds bar.
When Nelson is playing the guitar, he does a move similar to Angus Young's (and Chuck Berry's) "Duck Walk." He also mimics Pete Townshend's "Windmill."
At one point, Lisa says that Milhouse likes "Vaseline on toast," a possible reference to the song "She Don't Use Jelly" by the psychedelic alt-rock band The Flaming Lips - "She'll make ya toast/she don't use butter/she don't use cheese/she don't use jelly/or any of these/she uses Vaseline."
In Lisa's music class, there is a wide shot of the entire class. Ćter sits next to Milhouse Van Houten in this shot. However, in the next shot, its Ralph Wiggum. In a following shot of the entire class, it's Ćter again. They both replace each other in the same seat (i.e. Ralph is nowhere to be found in the shots with Ćter and vice versa.)
The hole in Nelson's locker appears to increase in size.
If Kearney has a car (the Hyundai that Chalmers and Skinner tried to steal the "H" from), why does he take the school bus?
In this episode, Nelson mentions that Lisa is the first person to come over his house ever since his dad went nuts, but "A Milhouse Divided" established that Nelson's dad left his mom after she got hooked on cough drops (and later episodes establish that Nelson lives with his mom, even though his dad appeared in "Bart Star" driving Nelson to Hooters [with Nelson saying that he doesn't want to bother his mom at work] and "Sleeping With The Enemy" revealed that Nelson's dad went missing for all these years because he was mistaken for a carnival freak after eating a candy bar and suffering an allergic reaction to the peanuts in it, to the point that he looked like a cranival sideshow freak and was forced to join one).
Homer's "Happy Dude" Scam
The initial message that Homer made for the Auto-Dialer is as such:
"Greetings, friend. Do you wish to look as happy as me? Well, you've got the power inside you right now. So use it. And send $1 to Happy Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. Don't delay; eternal happiness is just $1 away!"
After he is caught and tried, Homer replaces the above message with the following.
"Greetings friend, this is Homer Simpson, aka, Happy Dude. The courts have ordered me to call everyone, and apologize for my telemarketing scam...I'm sorry. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, send $1 to Sorry Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. You have the power!"