Josh and Sam try to light a fire in a White House fireplace only to find that it is only decorative when they set the fire alarms off. In January 2009, life imitated art when the Obama administration's new Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter R. Orszag, tried to light a fire in a fireplace in his office that filled other office suites with smoke and set the fire alarms off.
Leo asks Josh to "go to Ben and Sally's for dinner tonight" which presumably refers to Ben Bradlee, former Executive Editor of the Washington Post and his wife Sally Quinn, an author and journalist.
During preparations for the White House breakfast, President Bartlet tells his staff it's no big deal and 'I don't have to be Officer Krupke,' which is a reference to the beat cop in the 1957 Broadway musical and subsequent movie version, West Side Story (1961), which include a musical number sung by the Jets titled 'Gee, Officer Krupke!'
The fireplace whose flue had purportedly been welded shut for 100 years was ablaze with a roaring fire several times in Season One.