Trivia / A Nero Wolfe Mystery

• Alan Smithee: "The Mother Hunt" doesn't have a named director, with the position being credited to Alan Smithee instead.
• Critical Dissonance: Critics adored the series (and many still do), but this unfortunately didn't translate into ratings.
• The Other Darrin: Saul Rubinek originally played Saul Panzer in the pilot episode "The Golden Spiders", before the role was taken over by Conrad Dunn for the series proper. Unusually, Rubinek stayed on in the series as Lon Cohen, a character who had also appeared in "The Golden Spiders", played there by Gerry Quigley.
• You Look Familiar: The show utilized a repertory cast system so most of the actors would play different roles from episode to episode. An actor could play a pivotal role in one episode and make a brief comic relief appearance the next.
  • The major exceptions were Timothy Hutton (Archie), Maury Chaykin (Wolfe), Colin Fox (Fritz), Saul Rubinek (Lon Cohen), Conrad Dunn (Saul Panzer), Fulvio Cecere (Fred Durkin), Trent McMcullen (Orrie Cather), Bill Smitrovich (Inspector Cramer) and RD Reid (Sgt. Stebbins), who played the same roles across the entire series. Although they also played different roles throughout the show, Kari Matchett and Bill MacDonald also regularly played Lily Rowan and Lt. Rowcliff respectively. Kari Matchett has the distinction of playing both a regular character — Lily Rowan — and a non-recurring character — a night club singer — in the same episode ("Death of a Doxy"), while Nicky Guadagni played two non-recurring characters — Mrs. Cramer and a secretary — in the same episode ("The Silent Speaker").
• Vanilla Edition: The series' home media releases are bare-boned with only the second season and The Complete Classic Whodunit Series edition coming with a single behind-the-scenes featurette. Also, although the second season was shot in high-definition widescreen, only "The Silent Speaker" was ever released in that format as a "bonus".