There's probably a doctoral dissertation or two in tracking the changes that Nethack has undergone since the original release and linking them to cultural and historical phenomena that are happening about the same time.

The box with the cat is a good joke, especially from that monster.

Get smart is before my time - Inspector Gadget is more my target time, but I own it, and it is not hard to imagine his direction in the voice booth was "Agent 86 as a cyborg, Don."