Garrett Morris was very angry over being cast as a monkey in the previous episode. During rehearsals, he stormed into the studio late and screamed at the entire show's staff for never treating him fairly. At the end of the tirade, Kirk Douglas commented, "That's the best acting I've seen here all week."
Harry Shearer unsuccessfully lobbied to be cast as Anwar Sadat in the "Micro-Dentists" sketch because he felt his Sadat impression was better than Garrett Morris'.
In his 1994 book "Bunny Bunny: Gilda Radner - A Sort of Love Story", Alan Zweibel recounts that he invited his mother and the mother of his girlfriend Robin Blankman to play extra's in the Bar Mitzvah sketch. Unfortunately, the two women did not get along and one left the rehearsal because her table in the sketch wasn't as close to Kirk Douglas's table as the other's. Zweibel later learned from Gilda Radner that the incident was visible on practically every monitor in the building, possibly including the TV screens in the NBC family store.
Sam & Dave performed their hit Soul Man, making it it first song to be performed on the show by two different artists. The Blues Brothers previously performed it in episode 6 of Sseason 4.