During the "Tokyo Mater" short, Mater misses a drift and finds himself sliding through what appears to be a garage. When the doors on the other side of the garage open and Mater slides out, just inside the door, there are two cars, one that looks like James P. Sullivan, and another that looks like Mike Wazowski, a nod to another Pixar production, Monsters, Inc. (2001).
In the film noir inspired short, "Mater Private Eye", Mater is threatened and assaulted by having his headlight pried out by another character's switchblade screwdriver, leaving him with a bandaged headlight. This is a nod to Chinatown (1974), where J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) has his nose cut, and subsequently bandaged for most of the film.
Pixar's first ever tv series since Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000).
Time Travel Mater is the only episode that takes place after the 2nd Cars movie. The reason why is because Lightning McQueen was wearing his paint job from the 2nd movie.
All Mater's Tall Tales shorts have the same basic plot. Mater does or sees something, says he was doing, or did something related to the thing he just did or saw, gets halfway through his tale, when McQueen interrupts him saying it didn't happen, Mater replies with a "Aw, you remember. You was there too!", it cuts back to the tale, this time with McQueen in it, Mater finishes his tale, leaves, and McQueen spots something or someone from Mater's tale and gets confused, and the short ends.