I think what we are trying to do with this film is kind of harken back to a lot of those classic fantasy adventures that a young girl goes into: The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and the works of Maurice Sendak. I don't mind comparisons. It's not like we are trying to outdo them. We are simply related; The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland are so much a part of us. This is the fantasy world that she (the Labyrinth heroine) has grown up with. These are the stories that have fascinated her.
— Jim Henson on comparisons of Labyrinth to other works.[8]
Richard Corliss noted that the film appeared to have been influenced by The Wizard of Oz and the works of Maurice Sendak, writing that, "Labyrinth lures a modern Dorothy Gale out of the drab Kansas of real life into a land where the wild things are".[9] Nina Darnton of The New York Times wrote that the plot of Labyrinth "is very similar to Outside Over There by Mr. Sendak, in which 9-year-old Ida's baby sister is stolen by the goblins."[10] This almost got the film into legal trouble, as the similarity caused Sendak's lawyers to advise Jim Henson to stop production on the film. However, the legal complaint was eventually settled, with an end credit being added that states that, "Jim Henson acknowledges his debt to the works of Maurice Sendak".[11] Sendak's Outside Over There and Where the Wild Things Are are shown briefly in Sarah's room at the start of the film, along with copies of Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Grimms' Fairy Tales.
The film's concept designer Brian Froud, who had previously collaborated with Henson on The Dark Crystal, has stated that the character of Jareth was influenced by a diverse range of literary sources. In his afterword to the 20th anniversary edition of The Goblins of Labyrinth, Froud wrote that Jareth references "the romantic figures of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and a brooding Rochester from Jane Eyre" and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Bowie's costumes were intentionally eclectic, drawing on the image of Marlon Brando's leather jacket from The Wild One as well as that of a knight "with the worms of death eating through his armor" from Grimms' Fairy Tales.[12] In his audio commentary of Labyrinth, Froud said that Jareth also has influences from Kabuki theatre.[13]
The dialogue starting-with phrase "you remind me of the babe" that occurs between Jareth and the goblins in the Magic Dance sequence in the film is a direct reference to an exchange between Cary Grant and Shirley Temple in the 1947 film The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.[14]
Labyrinth's "Escher scene" features an elaborate staircase set inspired by the art of Dutch artist M. C. Escher.[15] A print of Escher's lithograph Relativity is shown on Sarah's bedroom wall in the film.[16]
