In General
- A lot of Jane's personalities have nods either to real life people or fictional characters like:
- The Hangman's Daughter being an artist with a unibrow may be a reference to Frida Kahlo
. - Pretty Polly being based off an old English song about a woman being killed by her lover. This also foreshadows her origins: She was born when Miranda's boyfriend goaded her into an orgy that traumatized several of the personas and culminated in Miranda killing herself.
- The Snow Queen, a nod towards the Han Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name.
- The Weird Sisters being a nod towards the three Fates, or even the three witches from Macbeth.
- Sylvia's name could be a nod towards the poet Sylvia Plath.
- The Hangman's Daughter being an artist with a unibrow may be a reference to Frida Kahlo
- Robotman almost always wears rock band shirts, including Bad Brains, The Germs, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, Motörhead and Black Flag
- Vic's red tracksuit is very much like the one worn by another TV cyborg.
Season 1
- Larry makes a reference to The Shining when he comments on how the academy turned into a literal haunted house.
- The man in the suit that Larry sees is a nod towards Freddy Kreuger with the fedora and needle fingers.
- In "Therapy Patrol" Admiral Whiskers obliquely quotes The Princess Bride before enacting his revenge on Cliff.
- In "Danny Patrol", Karen going back to Doug and recreating the scene from The Notebook.
- The way Karen is being dragged back into the Underground looks similar to the famous "sunken place" scene in Get Out (2017).
- In "Flex Patrol" Dolly getting killed via dusting will likely remind many of what happened to a lot of characters in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
Season 2
- Dorothy not only shares the same name as the one in The Wizard of Oz, she also wears her hair the same and dresses just like her. One of the promotional images for season 2 even seems to lampshade it by recreating the Doom Patrol and Dorothy strolling down a yellow brick road.
- In "Pain Patrol," Red Jack's character design is clearly inspired by the novel, musical, and film versions of The Phantom of the Opera. His red outfit looks a lot like the Red Death costume the Phantom wears in the masquerade sequence in the novel, musical, and 2004 film. Additionally, his face is extremely pale, like the Phantom's is in the novel and musical. Finally, he wears a white half-mask, like the Phantom does in the musical and film. However the mask's nose has a chunk missing the way a skull has no nose, referencing how the Phantom's face looks like a skull in the original novel.
- The entirety of "Sex Patrol" is a huge nod and homage to Ghostbusters (1984).
Season 3
- In "Possibilities Patrol" upon seeing Niles' ghost, Cliff immediately asserts that the latter had better not ask him to break out a pottery wheel.
- In "Vacay Patrol", Rita reverts to her blob form inside a plant vase, much like another TV shapeshifter and his sleeping bucket.
- Cliff jokingly refers to his infant grandson Rory as Professor Poopypants.
- In "Dead Patrol" the Doom Patrol being ferried across the water on a boat with a hooded man at the front rowing them. It's likely referencing the Greek figure Charon who ferries the dead into the afterlife.
- Cliff refers to Edwin as "judgy Harry Potter".
- In "Dada Patrol" Jane calls Laura De Mille "Doctor Who." Doubles as an Actor Allusion, as Michelle Gomez is a notable Who alumnus.
- In "Subconscious Patrol" the Underground Avenue is clearly a nod towards Sesame Street, Muppet and all. Jane even namedrops Captain Kangaroo and Jim Henson. The name "Underground Avenue" is likely also a nod to Avenue Q, a musical that used puppets and is best described as a Sesame Street send-up aimed at adults.
Season 4
- One of the flashbacks of the Butts in "Butt Patrol" has the Butts perform the song "Shipoopi" from The Music Man.
