In 2011, the episode was ranked at #22 on the AV Club's list of "24 Accidental TV Finales That Worked As Series-Enders."
Carrie Osgood worked for the same fictitious newspaper as Carl Kolchak on Kolchak: The Night Stalker series.
The town where this episode was filmed, Wrightwood, was ordered evacuated in the summer of 2016 Blue Cut fire, one of a series of large fires that devastated towns in the San Gabriel Mountains and elsewhere in California all summer. By now (2016) a popular weekend ski town and home to nearly 5,000 residents, the entire population was ordered out, although some refused. (Source: LA Times, Sept. 22, 2016)
Last show of the series. Doctor's orders forced Garner to take some time off, which led to Universal immediately beginning legal proceedings against him. Garner then countersued. At that point, NBC cancelled further production of the show, leaving several episodes unfinished. The remainder of the 1979-1980 season consisted of reruns, with the original 1974 two-hour pilot added (in two parts) to pad out the shorter than usual run of episodes. Garner's lawsuit against Universal stretched more than a decade, preventing him from reprising the character until the string of TV-movies in the 1990's.
Among the real magazines being sold in the Parma Pharmacy are the November 12, 1979, issues of Newsweek ("Drugs For the Mind", for $1.25), People ("Jonestown One Year Later: Grief and Anger" and "WKRP", for 75¢), and Time ("Starvation Deathwatch in Cambodia", for $1.25). Also the November 19, 1979, issues of People ("How Ripoffs Add 15% to Your Bills" and "The 10 sexiest bachelors in the world", for 75¢) and U.S. News and World Report ("Nightmare in Iran" and "White House Race Already a Circus", for $1.00).