Guest star Shirley Knight vied with Angela Lansbury for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress of 1962: Knight, nominated for Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), and Lansbury, nominated for The Manchurian Candidate (1962), were both bested by Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker (1962)). Knight would be one of two ''Murder, She Wrote'' guest stars who had afforded Lansbury competition for an Oscar, the other being Ann Blyth (Reflections of the Mind (1985)).
Shirley Knight, here playing Grace Fenton, would in Always a Thief (1990) play a character named Grace Lambert.
The episode title is derived from top 40 song "Smooth Operator" by Sade.