Actor Neil Patrick Harris reportedly drew inspiration from watching Robert Young in Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969). Learning that Young was ill and pondering death, Harris visited Young with tapes of this show and helped cheer him up.
Steven Bochco partially modeled the character of Doogie Howser after his father, who had been a child prodigy as a violinist.
Although Doogie and Vinnie were supposed to be the same age, Neil Patrick Harris is six years younger than Max Casella. Harris was sixteen during the first season, and Casella was twenty-two.
Steven Bochco stated in his interview on the season one DVD that he had been able to finish the series and write a "final" season, as opposed to ABC's abrupt cancellation of the show in its fourth season. In it, he would have depicted a season-long story arc in which Doogie becomes disillusioned with medicine and, in the end, becomes a writer.
One of the first sitcoms that did not have an audience or any laugh track.