PARKS AND RECREATION (2009–2015)

TRIVIA: The writers didn't know Nick Offerman could already play the saxophone when they made his character, Ron Swanson, a secret saxophone player.

Ron's second ex-wife ("Tammy Two") is played by Megan Mullally, who in her real life is married to Nick Offerman (Ron).

Jay Jackson, the actor who plays the comically literal Pawnee newscaster Perd Hapley, was for many years an actual print and broadcast journalist and anchor at news outlets in San Diego and Los Angeles. After he retired from journalism in the mid-2000s, through a friend's manager he got a small role as a reporter on a 2007 episode of Dexter. He agreed to allow the manager to send him on other auditions, but only as long as they only were for reporter roles, since that was his professional background, so he ended up also playing reporters on TV shows such as Scandal, Revenge, The Closer, The Mentalist, Body of Proof, and Braindead, as well as in movies such as Battleship and Fast Five.

In the episode "London parts 1 & 2" Ben says to Andy "So all you did is stop drinking beer?" and Andy replies "Yea I lost like 50lbs in a month." This is a reference to Chris Pratt's real life weight loss for his role in Zero Dark Thirty. He actually lost 60lbs.

Mayfair Games, makers of Settlers of Catan, were contracted to make Ben Wyatt's Cones of Duneshire look like a professional board game. Instead, Mayfair Games made a playable game with a full set of rules. However, it's complex and dense, so it has not been produced for the market. It was played at GenCon 2014 in Indiana, where 33 people paid $100 each for a ticket to play and the Ledgerman position (the scorekeeper who doesn't play) was auctioned off. The event made more than $20,000 for an Indiana food bank.

Chris Pratt modelled Andy's singing voice after Eddie Vedder, frontman of the band Pearl Jam, of whom Andy Dwyer is a huge fan.

In Season 7 Episode 12, one of the children trick or treating at Andy and April's house is wearing a Star Lord costume. Chris Pratt (Andy Dwyer) played the character of Star Lord in Marvel's Guardians of The Galaxy (2014).

WONDERFALLS (2004)

13 episodes were produced, but the show was canceled after only four episodes had aired. Afterwards, attempts were made to interest another network in airing the remaining nine episodes, which would have made the show one of, if not the first, American series to change networks midway through its first season. Ultimately, these efforts were unsuccessful, though the entire series was later released on DVD. 

Caroline Dhavernas normally speaks with a French-Canadian accent and had to take lessons in order to adopt a more American tone of voice for the role.

Kerry Washington was originally cast in the role of Mahandra, but was recast after shooting her scenes for the pilot. The role was recast (and that episode's scenes were reshot) with Tracie Thoms.

Though the show (and the titular shop) are supposedly set on the American side of the border, every exterior shot of Niagara Falls is obviously taken from the Canadian side. The city of Niagara Falls, New York is often seen across the Niagara River which divides the province of Ontario from the state of New York.

Several writers from the show provided voices for the muses.

Adam Scott was originally cast in the role of Aaron Tyler.

Lee Pace would later go on to star in another series created by Bryan Fuller, Pushing Daisies.

Caroline Dhavernas would later go on to star in another series created by Bryan Fuller, Hannibal.

GILMORE GIRLS (2000–2007)

Alexis Bledel hates coffee, but Rory, her character, loves it. Whenever you see her drinking "coffee" in the series, she is actually drinking Coca-Cola out of her cup.

Scott Patterson, who plays Luke, was not originally hired to be a series regular. He was only signed on for the pilot episode, but it was only after the discovery of the undeniable chemistry between him and Lauren Graham that he was contracted for more episodes, and quickly became a series regular.

Milo Ventimiglia and Alexis Bledel (Jess and Rory) actually dated in real life for three and a half years.

Liza Weil originally tested for the role of Rory and did not get the part, but the producers liked her so much that they wrote her the role of Paris Geller.

The exterior shot of "The Dragonfly Inn" is actually the home of TV's The Waltons (1971).

Keiko Agena (Lane Kim) was 26 playing a 15 year old in Season 1.

Luke's character was originally written to be played by a woman, but the producers figured that "there wasn't enough testosterone" in the series and that resulted in Scott Patterson turning the character around.

Rory occasionally speaks Spanish with Ezsperanza, where she's shown to be moderately-fluent, using basic conversational phrases. Ironically, Alexis Bledel is Hispanic (of Argentinian descent) and speaks Spanish fluently, having grown up in a Spanish-speaking household. Bledel has stated that her second language was English and she did not learn it until she attended school.

When the character Brad Langford (Adam Wylie) returns to Chilton Academy after an absence of several months, he explains that he was away playing Jack in "Into the Woods" on Broadway. Wylie really was away from the series to play Jack in the 2002 Broadway revival of "Into the Woods".

The town of Stars Hollow is based on Washington Depot, Connecticut. Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino stayed there while on a trip with her husband to look at Mark Twain's wallpaper.

Due to the fast pace speech in the show, the average script for an episode of the show runs 75-80 pages, as opposed to 45-50 for a standard hour-long television show. During the 101st episode, a black and white movie from the 1930s is being shown. Lorelai looks at the movie and says they "talked fast" in those movies.

  

Lane's band's name is "Hep Alien". The writers named it after producer Helen Pai; "Hep Alien" is an anagram of her name.

Carole King (who sings the theme song) guest stars in season 3 as the music "rock" store owner who lets Lane use her store drum set for practice.

The character of Jess (played by Milo Ventimiglia) was supposed to have a spin-off called "Windward Circle" which was picked up by the WB for midseason 2004, in which the character moves in with his estranged father (played by Rob Estes) and his father's girlfriend (played by Sherilyn Fenn) from Connecticut to California. But due to the high cost of filming on location in Venice, California, the WB changed their minds and decided not to go forward with it.

Lorelai and Christopher are driving to Friday night dinner at the Gilmores. During the drive they are listening to Skid Row's "18 and Life". The lead singer of Skid Row is Sebastian Bach who is Gil the guitarist of Lane's band Hep Alien.

During a June 2015 cast reunion on "The Today Show," Alexis Bledel was asked if she thought Rory would now be with Dean, Jess, or Logan, and her answer was "none of the above": "I think she'd be seeing someone new, or she'd be single and focused on her career. I don't think she'd be married." Lauren Graham then interjected, "that's the best answer ever!"

The dollhouse seen in Lorelai's bedroom is the same dollhouse seen on Friends when Monica inherits a dollhouse after her Aunt Sylvia dies - "The One with the Dollhouse." Both Friends and Gilmore Girls filmed on the Warner Brother's lot.

MAD MEN

According to Jon Hamm, the production's pursuit of historical accuracy is such that series researchers will insist on knowing weather conditions, news items, and popular culture for a particular period related to the script's time frame.

The actors do not smoke real cigarettes. They smoke Ecstacy herbal cigarettes, which are tobacco and nicotine free. Show creator Matthew Hoffman Weiner said in a New York Times article, "You don't want actors smoking real cigarettes. They get agitated and nervous. I've been on sets where people throw up, they've smoked so much." When asked what it's like to smoke herbal cigarettes, Jon Hamm (who plays Don Draper) told Vulture, "Terrible. They taste like a mixture between pot and soap."

About a year elapsed between the filming of the pilot, Mad Men: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (2007) and the second episode, Mad Men: Ladies Room (2007).

At a 2013 Q&A session at the Paley Center for Media, Matthew Weiner said that he had already told his wife and a few writers about how he plans to end the whole series. He also said that "he's been told it's a disaster, but he's going with it [anyway]."

Jon Hamm is the only actor to appear in every episode.

Glen, the neighbor's young son who forms a connection with Betty, is portrayed by Marten Holden Weiner, the son of series creator Matthew Hoffman Weiner.

John Slattery auditioned for the role of Don Draper before being asked to play Roger Sterling.

In 2012, costume designer Janie Bryant told Slate magazine that she always repeats one of Peggy's costumes from the previous season during the next season's premiere. Bryant said that she "[loves] that tradition for Peggy because I think that this all is really based in reality. That's what we would do in real life: We repeat our clothes."

On March 23rd, 2015 Jon Hamm released a statement admitting that he, like his character of Don Draper, had developed an alcohol addiction, and he had just completed a 30 day rehabilitation.

Julia Ormond, who guest-stars as Marie Calvet, was such an ardent fan of the show that she once ended a long-term relationship with someone when he watched a new episode of Mad Men without her.

The little ball-shaped glasses often used by Draper and colleagues are a design known since at least the 1950s as "roly poly" tumblers. The band of metal plating along the rim, an innovative accent introduced by artist Dorothy Carpenter Thorpe, made the design even more popular (and much-copied) through the 1960s and beyond. Sets of these made ideal business gifts, as the bands (made of silver, chrome, platinum, or even gold) could be custom-stenciled with initials, company logos or other business-related graphics. Draper's glasses appear to have platinum bands.

Creator Matthew Weiner directed every season's finale, all the way up to the series finale.