The villain from the first season finale (and second season premiere) has a last name of Lumiere, and is a filmmaker. The Lumiere brothers were pioneers of French cinema.
The show contains a fair number of Shout Outs to Sailor Moon. Some of them are Actor Allusion moments, as Katie Griffin (who plays Alex) played Sailor Mars in the early English dub of the show.
The show has a metric ton of Shout Outs to Cat's Eye, which had a very popular French dub in the 80's. Alex is a Captain Ersatz of Ai, the youngest Kisugi sister, who was called "Alex" in the dub.
Pam, Alice, and Crimson, the predecessors of the show's protagonists, are also modeled after the three Kisugi sisters. They also acted as rival spies in an episode tiled Spies Vs Spies.
References to Sailor Moon are probably an inside joke, as at least one of the voice actors — namely Katy Griffin, who plays Alex — also voiced Raye in the early DiC-dubbed episodes of that show.
Charlie's Angels, when a villain impersonating Jerry accidentally calls Alex "Farrah".
WOOHP sounds suspiciously similar to WOOC(P), the employer of the protagonist of The Ipcress File and other Len Deighton novels.
There is a Shout-Out to Tsukasa Hojo's Cat's Eye in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. More precisely, the tomboyish brunette Action Girl with a yellow Spy Catsuit Alex is an Expy for Ai Kisugi, the youngest of the three sisters. It's much easier for the French viewers to figure it out, since Ai was named Alex (short for Alexia) in the French dub. It also helps that Cat's Eye was broadcast multiple times on French public channels in the '80s (and well beloved). And yes, it was displayed on kids programs. Which the creators of the show grew up watching. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
In the episode "Spies Vs. Spies", the agents who predate the girls, Pam, Alice, and Crimson, seemed to have been directly modeled after the girls from Cat's Eye.
Crimson is a reference to the rock song "Crimson and Clover"
Also, whenever the girls are shown playing soccer, the animation draws much inspiration from Captain Tsubasa, from the balls taking on an oval shape after being kicked, all the way the ball spinning in the goalkeeper's hands until his gloves are fizzled out. Especially if Alex (who is a professed soccer fan, as per "Spy Soccer") is involved.
In the episode "Miss Spirit Fingers", Alex and Clover have a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment where they crash into a Pulp Fiction poster.
Jerry's Matrix-style jump to the helicopter in the episode "A Spy Is Born (part II)".
And there's another possible Matrix reference in the series 2 episode "It's How You Play the Game" with the wriggly silverfish robots used to infect people's minds by the Big Bad. They go in through the ear, though, not the belly button.
Oooh! And the James Bond crotch-laser in the episode "Starstruck".
Also when Jerry's mother, in a flashback, rises from the sea in an orange bikini with a white belt.
King Kong (1933), when the gorilla climbs up a skyscraper with Alex on its back in the episode "Animal World".
Averted with G.L.A.D.I.S.. Despite what many would think, this show's G.L.A.D.I.S. actually came first.
But G.L.A.D.I.S.' main interface looks a lot like Shirka from Ulysses 31.
Though it is possibly unintentional, the design for Gargantuan's head in episode 12 season 3 is strikingly similar to that of the Combat Boomers from Bubblegum Crisis.
in season 3's "Evil Promotion Much" remind anyone of a certain globetrotting adventuress?
