Haven't seen the show yet, huh Verno?

Animated did lots of homages and did them well, just because the creators were fans making a show for fans by fans. You really just need to watch it (and trawl the TFwiki) to understand - they really did love their work. If they were homaging Primal it was because they found a way to incorporate it into the storyline and because they wanted to, not to try to win over new fans.
Let's face it, Animated had been going for three seasons by then and it got a pretty big reaction from the fanbase one way or another, they weren't going to win over any new converts by then and they knew it.

Man I miss that series, and Season 4 sounded like it was gonna be great. RIP Animated.