"Yuk-a-Puk", which Buddy bemoans leaving the hit parade, was an actual song. It was one of many written by the actor that played Buddy, Morey Amsterdam.
Although Sam Denoff fondly recalled the story of his mother explaining to him (after the episode had been shot) the "real" meaning of the term "bupkis," his writing partner Bill Persky was not pleased with the episode. In Vince Waldron's "The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book," Waldron quoted Persky as saying, "The worst show we ever did was 'Bupkis," adding, "Oh, I hated it. Just hated it."
"Gornit" is the Yiddish word meaning "nothing." "Bupkis" is an idiom meaning worthless, translating as "beans" or "animal droppings;" therefore, something worth "bupkis" is as worthless as beans or animal droppings. Sam Denoff heard this word from his mother, but after she saw the show (from amidst the studio audience), she told him that they couldn't air it. "Oy vey," used later in the show, translates as "woe is me."
The call sign for the radio station Rob listens to is WIFE. At the time, those call letters were in actual use by an AM-FM combination in Indianapolis, Indiana. The call letters remained in use for the FM station until 1976 and for the AM station until 1983. The call letters were reassigned to a radio station in Rushville, Indiana in 2007.
The songs "It's a Funny War" and "The Only Girl I Ever Loved," which Dick Van Dyke and Robert Ball sing, are performed again in another series by different actors. Bill Persky, who co-wrote for this episode and 28 others with Sam Denoff, wrote the lyrics for these songs. Earle Hagen wrote the music. Bill Persky, who again co-wrote (as well as co-produced and co-created) for That Girl (1966), used these songs in Author, Author (1967), giving them to Ted Bessell to sing to Marlo Thomas.