This episode features the first of ten appearances by Martha Scott as Patricia Shepard, Sue Ellen's scheming mother. Scott has a storied history playing on-screen moms. Although only eleven years older than him, she has twice played mother to Charlton Heston, in The Ten Commandments (1956) and in Ben-Hur (1959). On television Scott was a memorable mom to such disparate sons as Tom Corbett on The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969), Dr. Robert Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show (1972), and Col. Steve Austin on The Six Million Dollar Man (1974).