Lucy Valdone tells a lecture audience about a smog-event in London "last December" that killed "4,703 people". This refers to an actual event in December of 1952 called "The Great Fog of London", in which over 4000 people died and many thousands more were made ill by coal smoke smog that stalled over London due to cold weather and an absence of wind. That reference places the events of this story in 1953.
Manon von Gerkan [Sally Corbett], Brooke Burns [Beatrice Epps] and Erinn Bartlett [Anne Tenzer] all appeared in the movie Shallow Hal.
Alan Smithee is the pseudonym for a director who wishes to distance himself from a project.