During the opening credits, the camera pans over a table with several framed photos, one of which appears to be of Angela Lansbury and Ann Blyth in their younger acting days.
Guest star Ann Blyth, here making her final screen appearance, vied with Angela Lansbury for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress of 1945: Blyth, nominated for Mildred Pierce (1945), and Lansbury, nominated for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), were both bested by Anne Revere (as Lansbury's screen mother in National Velvet (1944)). Blyth would be one of two ''Murder, She Wrote'' guest stars who had afforded Lansbury competition for an Oscar, the other being Shirley Knight (Smooth Operators (1989), Always a Thief (1990)).
The mysterious things happening in the house are intended to make people think they're going nuts. This is often called gaslighting after the 1944 Ingrid Bergman movie, Gaslight (1944). This was Angela Lansbury's first film role.
This episode was filmed at Greystone Park and Mansion in California which is the same location that is used for a Chilton, the school Rory attends, in Gilmore Girls