In an early draft of the script, writer-director Rae McGrath specified the frequency of the radio station Mel Cobb listens to as "1610 AM"; however, after William Brown, who played Cobb, researched and advised McGrath of a 1997 decision by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expanding the uppermost limit of the AM radio frequency to 1700 kHz from its prior cutoff of 1600 kHz, the fictitious station's frequency was changed (at Brown's behest) to "1720 AM."
The telephone used for the scenes in Mel Cobb's office cubicle is exactly the same as the phone in the scenes which took place in his apartment.
In producing the radio news segments, William Brown modeled the sound of the fictitious '1720 AM' radio station after that of New York City all-news radio station 1010 WINS. He also used 1970s airchecks from two other all-news stations, KYW in Philadelphia and KFWB in Los Angeles, as reference.
A scene which had been in the script and was filmed, with Cobb attempting to swipe a MetroCard with his left hand on his way to taking the subway to work, was cut from the opening title sequence due to time constraints.