John Turturro won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance in this episode.
John Turturro and Tony Shalhoub were both in the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink, and both appeared in several films by the directing team.
A picture of the Monk family is shown when Ambrose & Adrian were boys. This same picture would be shown again later in Mr. Monk's 100th Case (2008)(#7.7).
There are several homages to the iconic fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, whom Adrian Monk's eccentric character and deductive methods are based upon.
First, Adrian has a brother named Ambrose, who is comparable to Sherlock and his brother Mycroft.
In Sherlock's first meeting with Mycroft, they met at the Diogenes Club where the brothers had a friendly competition determining the attributes of a man walking outside the window, in which Mycroft proved to be the better man. In the Monk story, Ambrose deduced the location of a suspect's vehicle based upon details involving items found on a vehicle and his knowledge of the type of geography where those items originated.
In another scene, Ambrose discloses he knows "seven and a half languages," which is an homage to the title of the story involving the scene between Sherlock and Mycroft, "The Greek Interpreter."
Finally, the Monk episode is titled "The Three Pies," which is an homage to the Sherlock Holmes story "The Six Napoleons." In that story, a suspect is trying to locate an item within plaster busts of Napoleon Bonaparte owned by different people, and murders the owner of one of the busts. In "The Three Pies," the suspect is trying to locate an important piece of evidence of a murder he previously committed, and commits murder in the process of trying to obtain one of the three pies.
First, Adrian has a brother named Ambrose, who is comparable to Sherlock and his brother Mycroft.
In Sherlock's first meeting with Mycroft, they met at the Diogenes Club where the brothers had a friendly competition determining the attributes of a man walking outside the window, in which Mycroft proved to be the better man. In the Monk story, Ambrose deduced the location of a suspect's vehicle based upon details involving items found on a vehicle and his knowledge of the type of geography where those items originated.
In another scene, Ambrose discloses he knows "seven and a half languages," which is an homage to the title of the story involving the scene between Sherlock and Mycroft, "The Greek Interpreter."
Finally, the Monk episode is titled "The Three Pies," which is an homage to the Sherlock Holmes story "The Six Napoleons." In that story, a suspect is trying to locate an item within plaster busts of Napoleon Bonaparte owned by different people, and murders the owner of one of the busts. In "The Three Pies," the suspect is trying to locate an important piece of evidence of a murder he previously committed, and commits murder in the process of trying to obtain one of the three pies.
The carjacked convertible belonging to the first murder victim is an early model (1960-1964) Chevrolet Corvair. Within the early model production run, convertibles were produced from 1962-1964.