Stanley Kamel, who plays the psychiatrist Dr. Packer, would spend the last six years of his life as Dr. Kroger, Adrian's psychiatrist on Monk (2002).
"Hunger Strike" won the Writers Guild Award for Episodic Comedy.
Dr. Packer misdiagnoses Miss Smith as suffering from hebephrenia, also known as disorganized schizophrenia. Patients with this condition are prone to fits of inappropriate laughter, and will degenerate into incomprehensible babbling.