The English voice acting was provided by voice actors from 4Kids Entertainment, the company who provided the English dub of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Jimmy and Pink Monkey are voiced by Veronica Taylor, who provided the voice of Ash, Ash's mom, and May from Pokemon. Natalie is voiced by Rachel Lillis, who provided the voice of Misty, Jesse, and Jigglypuff in Pokemon. The professor and Spike are voiced by Dan Green, who voiced both young Yugi and adult Yugi in Yu-Gi-Oh. Specter, Blue Monkey, and Red Monkey are voiced by Greg Abbey, who provided the voice of Tristan in Yu-Gi-Oh.

A number of monkeys found throughout the game have names that parody celebrities and other famous characters. These include:
• Tomkey Kruise - Tom Cruise
• Balboa - Rocky Balboa
• Baboondini - Houdini
• Count Monkula - Count Dracula
• The Invisible Monkey - The Invisible Man
• Hyde - Mr. Hyde (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
• Clint Apewood - Clint Eastwood
• Pelvis - Elvis

In Ape Escape 2, in "The Blue Babboon" and "Simian Citdel" levels, one-of-a-kind enemies exclusive to each stage can be found known as the "Space Can" and the "Submarine Lookalike" respectively, neither of which can harm the player in any way. Their Enemy Cards both mention that they "came to the wrong game". Ape Escape 2 was developed by Japan Studio and originally released in Japan on July 18, 2002.

A little over three months later on October 24, Sony published a Japan-exclusive game titled Space Fishermen, a collaboration between Japan Studio and the American animation studio Spümcø, Inc. under the name "Land Ho!". Both characters appear in the game as fish you can catch, presumably having found the correct game they were supposed to be in.