Higgins refers to the Yakuza meeting on the boat as a "little Appalaccia." Actor John Hillerman mispronounced this. What he meant to say was "little Apalachin." This refers to a Mafia summit meeting of the various heads of crime families from across the country (the first of its kind), which took place in 1957 in the rural home of Joseph "Joe the Barber" Barbara, a small town 20 miles west of Binghamton, NY. The FBI had been keeping tabs on all the participants and when they all took a trip to New York state at the same time, it was obvious that something was up. When the mobsters were alerted to the arrival of the FBI, the results were comical. The mobsters scattered in all directions with many of them running off into the woods. This out of the way meeting - on a boat with just a few people instead of in a rural setting - is what made this a "little Apalachin".