Just as Jim's telling Karen Mills (Pat Delaney) in their car trip back down to Los Angeles about his experiences during the Korean War (he tells her how he made money selling radios with earphones), so did the 'real' one. During his hitch in the Korean war, James Garner became a 'dog robber'. As he, himself explained in his autobiography, The Garner Files; A Memoir, Garner said; 'A dog robber is a soldier who knows how to work the system, a facilitator who can get just about anything done
The maroon beach house featured in the episode was in numerous television shows,might best be known as Kris Munroe's beach house from Charlie's Angels (1976).
This episode (based on Howard Browne's novel, Thin Air) has been the basis for both this story, as well as Thin Air (1982), and actor, Gerald McRaney appeared in both.