This was Bruce Willis' first-ever credited television role. He was cast as a guest star on recommendation by Don Johnson. The two knew each other from a bar in New York, where Willis had a night job as a bartender at the time.
Jan Hammer's score at the beginning of the opening scene is an approximation of the song "I Don't Care Anymore" by Phil Collins, which appears later in the same episode. This would not be the only time an episode's score music emulated one of the songs it used; Hammer would sample Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" in Better Living Through Chemistry (1986), while Tim Truman would copy Eric Clapton's "She's Waiting" in The Lost Madonna (1989).
Two episodes back, the director had been one half of TV cop duo Starsky and Hutch (1975), Paul Michael Glaser. For this episode, the director was the other half, David Soul.