Rick Riordan (author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians) appears during Percy's meeting with the Dean, sitting opposite Mr. Brunner.
This episode covers chapters 1 through 4 from the book it's based on.
The title of this first episode in the series is the same title of Chapter 1 of the book where this series originated from: "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief"
The card that Grover gives to Percy of the Minotaur is from the game Mythomagic, a TCG that was first introduced in the third book, The Titans Curse, and is played with both cards and figurines depicting both Gods and Monsters. The game itself makes several appearances in the Percy Jackson books and its sequel and spinoff series.