In the early 1940s Walt Disney was developing a feature film based on Roald Dahl's book "Gremlin Lore", and asked the other studios to refrain from producing Gremlin films. While most of the studios complied, Warner Bros. already had two cartoons too far into production - Lapin et Lutin (1943) and this cartoon. As a compromise, Leon Schlesinger retitled the cartoons to remove any reference to gremlins. The original title was Gremlins From the Kremlin.
Many of the gremlins are caricatures of Warner Brothers cartoon studios staff, including Leon Schlesinger, Mel Blanc, Michael Maltese, Rod Scribner, and Friz Freleng.
There are several current "pop culture" references in this cartoon, including: "I'm only three and a half years old" - radio catch phrase of Lou Costello; "How do you do?" - catch phrase of Bert Gordon's radio character, "The Mad Russian"; and "Nazis is the cwaziest people" - a rephrasing of Lew Lehr's Fox Movietone News catchphrase, "Monkeys is the cwaziest people."
Hitler's promise to "bomben that Irish general Tim O'Shenko" is a reference to Soviet general Semyon Timoshenko.
The mock-German newspaper front page around 0:45:00, below the BLITZ HITS FRITZ!! line, has several headlines in coherent German. The one at upper right says, "Allies have reached last Axis defense line in Tunisia." Below that on the left, "Marschall Rommel no superman, said Eisenhower."