Franchise: Animal Crossing

The character "Pierce" the eagle has the catchphrase "Hawkeye", leaving many to believe he is a reference to the sitcom "M*A*S*H". M*A*S*H's main character is Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce.

The Gyroids bear a strong resemblance to Haniwa; clay figures made for ritual use and buried with the dead. This explains why Gyroids can only be obtained by digging, and also implies that you have just dug up someone's grave. This likeness is referenced in the Japanese version of Animal Crossing: City Folk, where the auction house owner Lloid is named "Haniwa-Kun".

K.K. Slider is based on the game's sound designer Kazumi Totaka. K.K. Slider's Japanese name "Totakeke" is taken from the fact that in Japan, last names are written first, so it would be Totaka Kazumi. That can be shortened to "Totaka K" very similar to "Totakeke". Totaka has also hidden music in every Animal Crossing game, and at least twelve other games. People now search for the hidden music in his games, which is known as "Totaka's Song".

Animal Crossing creator Katsuya Eguchi has spoken about how his inspiration for the series came from a lonely point in his life when he moved over 300 miles from his home, Chiba, to work at Nintendo's Kyoto HQ. In an Edge Magazine Interview, Eguchi spoke of using this emotion to influence the original Animal Crossing.

"Animal Crossing features three themes: family, friendship and community. But the reason I wanted to investigate them was a result of being so lonely when I arrived in Kyoto! Chiba is east of Tokyo and quite a distance from Kyoto, and when I moved there I left my family and friends behind. In doing so, I realized that being close to them "being able to spend time with them, talk to them, play with them" was such a great, important thing. I wondered for a long time if there would be a way to recreate that feeling, and that was the impetus behind the original Animal Crossing."

In each Animal Crossing game is a rock that you can hit with your shovel once a day, which gives out money (bells) each time you hit it. The rock changes every day. It will also play the 1-up sound from the Super Mario Bros. series after enough hits.

Animal Crossing started out as a Nintendo 64 game called Dōbutsu no Mori (Animal Forest) exclusive for Japan. There is a fish called Herabuna that is exclusive to Animal Forest.

The co-director of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Aya Kyogoku, revealed that fans got the wrong idea about Tom Nook, stating that rather than being the greedy antagonist he's perceived to be, Nook is actually a good guy.

According to an interview, Mr. Iwata (president of Nintendo) reported that Mr. Resetti actually caused young girls to cry.

Tom Nook is not actually a raccoon. Rather, he is a tanuki (raccoon dog). He was made this way because tanukis loosely represent money and financial success in Japanese mythology.

Kapp'n is not actually a turtle like the English translations pass him off as. He is based off a kappa. This is because his original purpose was to boat people to the island, and kappas are associated with water.

Two recurring animals, a giraffe named Gracie and a camel named Saharah, known as Grace and Roland respectively in Japan, are both female in the west. However in the Japanese releases they are both male who speak and appear in an effeminate manner.

Gulliver is a seagull who travels around the world in the Animal Crossing series. He occasionally make references other Nintendo titles like Majora's Mask, A Link to the Past, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Paper Mario.

Jeremiah the bullfrog is actually based off of the lyrics of the song "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night:

Wart Jr.'s name has two possible origins. It could be based on the myth that touching frogs or toads causes warts, as he is a toad, or it could also be a reference to Wart, the final boss of Super Mario Bros. 2/Doki Doki Panic, as he is another frog character.

Apollo the bald eagle's birthday is on July 4th. This is likely a reference to the United States of America's Independence Day, as the bald eagle is both the national bird and national animal of the United States of America.

The song K.K. Condor was originally named "Peru no Uta" (Song of Peru) in the Japanese games. It's believed this was changed to avoid referring to a real-world country, but despite that, it sounds very similar to the "Song of the Condor", a traditional song of the Andean people, who lived in what is now Peru.

An Animal Crossing film, entitled Dōbutsu no Mori (劇場版　どうぶつの森 Gekijōban Dōbutsu no Mori) was released in Japan. The story is based on Animal Crossing: Wild World. The film never saw an international release.

There was a game by the name of Cabbage which was to be developed and released for the Nintendo 64DD, an expansion peripheral for the Nintendo 64. The project was helmed by Shigesato Itoi, creator of the Mother series, with other big name developers eventually being added on to help finish the project. Even with this help it would never see the light of day. It was said by Shigeru Miyamoto that, "the conversations and design techniques that popped up when we were making Cabbage are, of course, connected to Nintendogs and other things that we're doing now." Those "other things" most likely referring to Animal Crossing as it used many of the base elements said to have been made for Cabbage including the internal clock feature of the N64DD. To this day there are no known screenshots, videos, or demos of this cancelled game.

On January 28th, 2021, a fan animation by ZONE-Sama was uploaded on Twitter titled "Ankhazone". The video features Ankha having sex with the Villager, to the tune of Sandy Marton's "Camel by Camel", as an homage to a similar pornographic fan animation by Minus8 called "Ankha Ride". The video became popular in the following months as a result of "Camel by Camel" trending on its own on TikTok that various remixes and parodies of "Ankhazone" became prevalent throughout the latter site and YouTube.