This episode continues the tradition of starting each new season with a story focused on Opie. The others are: "The New Housekeeper," "Opie and the Bully," "Mr. McBeevee," "Opie Loves Helen," "Opie's Job," "Opie's Girlfriend" and "Opie's First Love."
This episode is consistently voted into the Top 10 of the series popularity polls. "Convicts-at-Large," "The Haunted House," "Christmas Story," "The Pickle Story" and "Three Wishes for Opie" are the top 5 highest rated episodes.
"Wynken, Blynken and Nod," the names Opie uses for the three orphaned birds, is the title of a poem by Eugene Field, published in 1889.
Although Andy confiscates Opie's slingshot in the bedroom scene, Opie still has a gun on his bedside table.