The monsters and shaky camera style of cinematography are a reference to the Paramount Pictures film Cloverfield (2008).
The boys express reluctance to go to Peru because a friend had been "raped" there, in reference to the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) which was parodied two episodes earlier in The China Probrem (2008).
Re giant guinea pigs. The Peruvian breed of meat animal guinea pig weighs up to 8 pounds and is aggressive and very difficult to handle. The 2 pound, placid, cuddly pet guinea pigs are a different breed. About the time this episode was made, the larger pigs were showing up at pet stores, getting bought as babies, and then growing up to traumatize their owners.
The detention center in Miami used to hold the band members is a reference to the Mariel boatlift, a mass immigration of over 125,000 Cubans who traveled from the Mariel Harbor in Cuba to the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980 following a sudden crash of the Cuban economy. The Mariel boatlift was featured prominently in the film Scarface (1983).
Guinea pigs shown in the episode are an important cultural symbol of Peru.