This film is advertised on the marquee of the Hill Valley Town Theater on November 12, 1955 in Retour vers le futur (1985). It can briefly be seen after the DeLorean is sent back to October 26, 1985.
Les Simpson (1989) features a comic book character called Radioactive Man who is transformed when accidentally caught in an atomic blast, as is the case with Mickey Rooney's character Barnaby "Blix" Waterberry in this film. In Radioactive Man (1995), a film version of the Radioactive Man comic book is being made in Springfield. Rooney played himself in that episode.
The nuclear test at the beginning of the film in the title sequence features the iconic shot of 'Baker' from the Operation Crossroads test series on Bikini Atoll in 1946.
The character Edgar Pangborn has the same name as a science fiction writer who was writing at the time. Pangborn wrote a series of stories set in the aftermath of an atomic war.
The atomic blast to which Blix is exposed is one of the Desert Rock tests in Nevada.