This episode aired just ten days before the 1988 presidential election between George H. W. Bush (R- Texas) and Michael Dukakis (D-Massachusetts). Bush won the election by a vote of 426-111. Coincidentally, Michael Dukakis' adopted son John, played Mallory's boyfriend Jeff Wakefield in four episodes from 1983-1984.
The title is from the Frank Capra screwball comedy It Happened One Night (1934) that starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The film was the first to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay) and held that record for forty years until One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).