This episode was based on writer/producer Christopher Lloyd's experience of removing a dead seal from the beach of a rented house. He and a friend hauled the carcass out into the ocean on a kayak, but the carcass was washed back to shore on the tide.
Daphne (Jane Leeves) mocks Martin's (John Mahoney) sweater, yet it was her Christmas present to him in the previous year's episode "Frasier: Perspectives on Christmas (1997)."
The pass-code to Maris's seaside home is described as her "ideal weight", and "what she weighed at her débutante ball" during her pageant years. The series of numbers that Niles (David Hyde Pierce) punched in would mean that Maris, at that time, was 45 pounds and 12 ounces (20.8 kg).
Playwright Christopher Durang appears in this episode as Sebastian Melmoth. His character's name was the one Oscar Wilde used during his travels after his release from prison. In Episode 4.3, "Frasier: The Impossible Dream (1996)," Durang played the part of Rudy, a man who called into Frasier's radio program and cried while retelling the plot of a sad movie.
As noted in another trivia entry, the title of this episode is taken from the play (and subsequent movie) "The Man Who Came to Dinner." Like the main character in the play, the dead seal becomes an unwelcome, unpleasant guest who will not leave his hosts' home. [05/20/2022]