Trivia For House

• The show takes place in the Mercer County area of New Jersey. In the opening credits, there are shots of various locations around the area of Princeton, Trenton, West Windsor, and Plainsboro, including Princeton University. The hospital, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, is based on a real hospital in Princeton, Princeton Hospital, the University Medical Center at Princeton. An Executive Producer and the director of the pilot episode, Bryan Singer, is from the area, and attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School.
• The aerial shots of the hospital are actually of the back of Frist Student Center at Princeton University.
• In the episode where Wilson moves in with House (Season 2), House's tivo list is shown. One of the saved programs is "Blackadder", featuring Hugh Laurie.
• Hugh Laurie's own father was a doctor, and he feels a twinge of guilt at "being paid more to become a fake version of my own father."
• During Hugh Laurie's audition, David Shore says that Bryan Singer, one of the executive producers, said, "See, this is what I want; an American guy." Singer was completely unaware of the fact that Hugh Laurie is British.
• Hugh Laurie auditioned for the part of Dr. House via video shot in a hotel bathroom in Namibia, where he was shooting the film Flight of the Phoenix (2004). "It was the only place with enough light," the actor claimed.

• The motorcycle that Dr. House owns is a 2005 Honda CBR1000RR Repsol Replica.
• Although the Diagnostic Medicine team deal with all types of diseases, House and his colleagues hold titles in various subspecialties: Dr. Foreman is a neurologist; Dr. Cameron is an immunologist/allergist; Dr. Chase is an intensivist. As for Dr. House, he is double-certified in infectious disease and nephrology (as mentioned in episode #1.3).
• The show was inspired by The Diagnosis Column in the New York Times Magazine which spotlights unusual medical cases. Executive Producer Paul Attanasio came up with the concept and pitched it to the networks as a medical procedural. Creator David Shore revised the idea into a character drama where the medical cases became the instrument instead of the focus of the storytelling.
• In his office, Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) has posters from classic films Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) and Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958).
• The Production Company credit at the end of the show for Bad Hat Harry productions ("That's some bad hat, Harry") is a reference to the movie Jaws (1975).
• Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer) is an intensivist, a doctor who specializes in intensive care. This specialty is new and uncommon in the United States, but well-established in Australia, where the character is from.
• Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison became engaged in December of 2006. This was at roughly the time they were shooting the first episodes in which their characters, Dr. Chase and Dr. Cameron, began a romantic relationship.
• Dr. Gregory House was based on Sherlock Holmes... but Holmes, in turn, was based on a Doctor that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew while studying medicine, a Dr. Bell, whose specialty was diagnosis.

• Robert Sean Leonard was the first actor to be cast.
• Sándor Szakácsi, the Hungarian voice of Dr. House died in March 2007, he could only finish the dubbing of 11 episodes of the second season. As a tribute to him, the TV channel decided to use the unfinished work, therefore in the first half of episode 12 of season 2 we still hear Sándor, then the new voice, János Kulka takes over the job. The commercial break (there is only one in Hungary) is inserted where the change takes place - actually in the middle of a scene.
• When a student in the audience of Hugh Laurie's edition of "Inside the Actors Studio" (1994) asked Laurie if he thought Dr. House should be romantically involved with Cameron, Cuddy or Wilson, Laurie said: "I suspect that if the show runs long enough, he's going to run through all of them. What order that unfolds in is not for me to say. I think any of those relationships is, of course, believable. Two people can always find some comfort or attraction, so I think all are possible. I think Robert [Sean Leonard] might have something to say about it... I don't know how Robert would take that. But you know, I'm game."
• From a promo picture for the show's fourth season, it was discovered that Dr. Wilson received his undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal, QC. He'd been seen previously wearing a McGill sweater. He also received a degree from Columbia University's "School of Oncolgy" [sic].
• The gun the cop said he used a taser gun on Victoria. However, taser guns are illegal in New Jersey. Very few cops are allowed to carry them.
• The $100 bill that House tries to bribe the cop with is fake. The portrait of Ben Franklin is facing the wrong way.

• Since the mid-1980s the standard treatment for rabies in the U.S. is one shot in the butt, similar to a penicillin shot, and five in the arm with
• Getting the shots after the nerve symptoms show up is useless: at that point the brain is already involved and you are dead.
• Foreman gets bitten on the hand and shows nerve tingling within hours. in reality, the first symptoms would take at least four days and could be a lot longer.
• There is no lab test for rabies in living beings - the confirming diagnosis can only be done by post-mortem examination of the brain.
• Given New Jersey is (real life) in the midst of a real on-going raccoon rabies epizootic, it takes a long time for them to diagnose rabies. The lack of fever, varying lucidity, sensitivity to sensory inputs, and the inability to swallow should have been dead giveaways, not to mention the bats.
• House deduces that Lucille has been cheating on her husband from the color of her children's eyes. Both Lucille and her husband have brown eyes while most of their children have blue. Brown eyes are a dominant trait, but we know that Lucille must have the gene for both brown and blue eyes or else none her children could have blue eyes. Theoretically her husband could have the same mix of genes and then every child would have 25% chance of having blue eyes, which--unlikely as it is--could account for the majority of children with blue eyes.

• House wrote "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" on his dry erase board and put his marker down. Then, the camera pans the room and Chase gives his theory as to why the girl did that. We then see the "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" circled on the board (but House put his marker down earlier). They argue for a few minutes with "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" circled. House tells Cameron & Chase to give her medicine. We see the board again and "TEMPORARY PSYCHOSIS" is not circled.
• Annette mentions Harvey was seen by an acupuncturist who diagnosed Liver Qi stagnation and sent Harvey to a Shen balancer. No practitioner in this area would do such thing as 1) Liver Qi stagnation isn't treated by balancing the Spiritual Aspect Shen and 2) any competent acupuncturist is capable of dealing with the situation and should easily move the Liver Qi to resolve such stagnation.
• This is the first episode with a cold open taking place inside the hospital. Each previous episode features a cold open with House's future patient just prior to hospitalization.
• At the end of the scene with Dr House and his team listening to the sounds of Andie's heart, Dr House changes from the sound of the heart to an opera song. However, because he is using a third generation iPod, he would have to change songs by hitting the track change button above the scroll wheel, which he does not do. Instead, he is rotating his thumb counterclockwise, which should be reducing the volume, which does not happen, nor should it change tracks because he does not have the click wheel featured in iPod generations 4 and after.

• The top right button (as we watch, it will be the top button to the left side of the screen.) of House's black coat changes. When he exits the elevator at the beginning, while talking to Wilson, it's a creamy brown, then it changes to a black button that matches the others. And later on, it goes back to the creamy coffee-colored one again.