The character of "Bobby" can likely be traced back to Mandel's days as a stand up comedian in Canada and later the United States. Mandel would commonly go into character with the same voice as Bobby, often conversing with an unseen "parent".

The voices of Kelly Generic (Bobby's sister) and Martha Generic (Bobby's mom) are based on two recurring characters Gail Matthius played when she was a cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1980. Martha is based on the character, Roweena, a chain-smoking hair stylist with a Midwestern accent who gets into arguments with her best customer Nadine (played by fellow castmember Denny Dillon) while Kelly Generic is based on the character, Vicky, a Valley Girl who annoys others with her shallow questions and rambling stories and often is seen with her friend Debbie (also played by castmember Denny Dillon)

In the US, during the show's final season on-air, the show was open-captioned for the hearing-impaired; this was done by using the show's closed-captions in a way that all viewers could see them. This is despite the fact that most network programming by this time were closed-captioned, and most televisions made after 1993 had closed-captioning capabilities.

• Bobby's World Site at HowieMandel.com
• Bobby's World at TV.com
• Toon Tracker Audio File - The Bobby's World Theme
• Bobby's World on Kabillion.com