Trivia for
"House M.D." (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• The show takes place in the Mercer County area of New Jersey. In the opening credits, there are shots of various locations around the area of Princeton, Trenton, West Windsor, and Plainsboro, including Princeton University. The hospital, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, is based on a real hospital in Princeton, Princeton Hospital, the University Medical Center at Princeton. An Executive Producer and the director of the pilot episode, Bryan Singer, is from the area, and attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School.
  
  
• The aerial shots of the hospital are actually of the back of Frist Student Center at Princeton University.
  
  
• Hugh Laurie's own father was a doctor, and he feels a twinge of guilt at "being paid more to become a fake version of my own father."
  
  
• The motorcycle that Dr. House owns is a 2005 Honda CBR1000RR Repsol Replica.
  
  
• Although the Diagnostic Medicine team deal with all types of diseases, House and his colleagues hold titles in various subspecialties: Dr. Foreman is a neurologist; Dr. Cameron is an immunologist/allergist; Dr. Chase is an intensivist. As for Dr. House, he is double-certified in infectious disease and nephrology (as mentioned in episode #1.3).
  
  
• The show was inspired by The Diagnosis Column in the New York Times Magazine which spotlights unusual medical cases. Executive Producer Paul Attanasio came up with the concept and pitched it to the networks as a medical procedural. Creator David Shore revised the idea into a character drama where the medical cases became the instrument instead of the focus of the storytelling.
  
  
• In his office, Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) has posters from movie Robert Redford's Ordinary People (1980) and the classic films Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958) and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958).
  
  
• The Production Company credit at the end of the show for Bad Hat Harry productions ("That's some bad hat, Harry") is a reference to the movie Jaws (1975).
  
  
• Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer) is an intensivist, a doctor who specializes in intensive care. This specialty is new and uncommon in the United States, but well-established in Australia, where the character is from.
  
  
• Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison became engaged in December of 2006. This was at roughly the time they were shooting the first episodes in which their characters, Dr. Chase and Dr. Cameron, began a romantic relationship.
  
  
• Dr. Gregory House was based on Sherlock Holmes... but Holmes, in turn, was based on a Doctor that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew while studying medicine, a Dr. Bell, whose specialty was diagnosis.
  
  
• Robert Sean Leonard was the first actor to be cast.
  
  
• Sándor Szakácsi, the Hungarian voice of Dr. House died in March 2007, he could only finish the dubbing of 11 episodes of the second season. As a tribute to him, the TV channel decided to use the unfinished work, therefore in the first half of episode 12 of season 2 we still hear Sándor, then the new voice, János Kulka takes over the job. The commercial break (there is only one in Hungary) is inserted where the change takes place - actually in the middle of a scene.
  
  
• From a promo picture for the show's fourth season, it was discovered that Dr. Wilson received his undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal, QC. He'd been seen previously wearing a McGill sweater. He also received a degree from Columbia University's "School of Oncolgy" [sic].
  
  
• On "Inside the Actors Studio" (1994), Hugh Laurie admitted that when he first read the script for House (which did not have the title of "House M.D." at the time) he believed that the character of Wilson was the lead. He just couldn't believe that a man such as House could be the star of the show.
  
  
• In the episode where Wilson moves in with House (Season 2), House's Tivo list is shown. One of the saved programs is "Blackadder II" (1986), featuring Hugh Laurie.
  
  
• During Hugh Laurie's audition, producer David Shore told how Bryan Singer, one of the executive producers, said, "See, this is what I want; an American guy." Singer was completely unaware of the fact that Hugh Laurie is British.
  
  
• Hugh Laurie auditioned for the part of Dr. House via video shot in a hotel bathroom in Namibia, where he was shooting Flight of the Phoenix (2004). "It was the only place with enough light," the actor claimed.
  
  
• When a student in the audience of Hugh Laurie's edition of "Inside the Actors Studio" (1994) asked Laurie if he thought Dr. House should be romantically involved with Cameron, Cuddy or Wilson, Laurie said, "I suspect that if the show runs long enough, he's going to run through all of them. What order that unfolds in is not for me to say. I think any of those relationships is, of course, believable. Two people can always find some comfort or attraction, so I think all are possible. I think Robert [Robert Sean Leonard, who plays Dr. Wilson] might have something to say about it . . . I don't know how Robert would take that. But you know, I'm game."
  
  
• The tagline, "Humanity Is Overrated" was used in Finland. In November 2007 Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot to death 8 people in Finnish school and used same phrase, following which the phrase was removed from the show's website.
  
  
• Three out of six original cast members are left-handed: Cuddy, Foreman and Wilson.
  
  
• Omar Epps' character, Eric Foreman, shares a name with the lead character on "That '70s Show" (1998), played by Topher Grace.
  
  
• One of the movie posters on Wilson's office is Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958), where Orson Welles plays a detective with a gimp leg, who solves crimes purely on his intuition. Clearly one of the influences for the character of Dr. House.
  
  
• In April 2009, Kal Penn told Entertainment Weekly Magazine that the writers killed off his character on "House M.D." (2004) because he had asked to be allowed to leave the show to go work for the Barack Obama Administration as the Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Liaison.
  
  
• Many of the actors that have been featured on House M.D. have also been on the show "Psych" (2006). For example: Anne Dudek played Lucinda on Psych for the "Pilot". She also played Dr. Amber Volakis on House for all of season 4 and part of season 5. Jimmi Simpson played Mary on Psych for "An Evening with Mr. Yang". He also played Daniel Bresson on House for "Unfaithful". Michael Weston played Adam Hornstock on Psych for "Cloudy...Chance of Murder". He also played Lucas Douglas on House for part of season 5. Frank Whaley played Robert on Psych for "Who you Gonna Call". He also played Mr. X on House for "Mirror Mirror". Kurtwood Smith played Brett Connors on Psych for "Forget Me Not". He also played Dr. Obyedkov on House for "Half-Wit". Scott Michael Campbell played Wes Hildenbach on Psych for "9 Lives. He also played Joe Luria on House for both "Euphoria: Part 1" and Euphoria: Part 2". Mackenzie Astin played Jason Cunningham on Psych for "Tuesday the 17th". He also played Alan Alston on House for "All In".
  
  
• Dr. House's most famous line "Everybody Lies" was in fact used by another doctor about a year and a half before the pilot episode, in another medical show, the sitcom "Scrubs" (2001). Dr. Bob Kelso says "Everybody lies, Dr. Turk" in the season 2 episode "Scrubs: My New Old Friend (#2.12)" (2003), after Dr. Turk fails to prevent an old lady to drive home because she said she was fine enough to drive and that she had to pick up her grand kids.
  
  

• SPOILER: David Shore has said that the character of House is inspired by the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, particularly with regard to drug use and his desire (and capacity) to solve the insolvable. House uses Holmesian deductive techniques to diagnose his patients' problems. References to the sleuth range from the obvious (House's apartment number being 221B) to the subtle (his friendship with Dr. James Wilson and the similarities between the names House and Holmes, and Wilson and Watson). In the very first (pilot) episode the patient's last name is Adler, and in the last episode of season two, the last name of the man who shot House is Moriarty. House's act of faking cancer in "Half-Wit" (Episode 15 of Season 3) is similar to the Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" in which Holmes fakes a deadly eastern disease to catch a criminal.
  
  

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