This was Anne Heche's first post-Another World gig in between her four years on the soap opera and her first movie O'Pioneers with Jessica Lange.
In her memoir, "Call Me Crazy", Anne Heche states that she swore off doing television series guest appearances after this appearance on "Murphy Brown", saying that appearing in such roles would be detrimental to her long-term success. With the exception of an episode of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" in 1993, she stuck with that pledge until after she had achieved fame in the late 1990s. She later took a recurring guest role on "Ally MacBeal" in 2001 and would take various TV series guest roles afterward.
This episode of "Murphy Brown" was the first onscreen appearance of actress Anne Heche other than her 4-year tenure on "Another World". She had actually completed the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of "O Pioneers!" earlier, but it did not air until several months after the "Murphy Brown" episode.