Although this episode features many older actors, they would all live long enough to see the two younger stars, Michael Landon and Victor French pass away.
Estelle Wicks complains to Jonathan about old people. Jonathan tells her to appreciate them since many people do not live long enough to become old. Sadly, Michael Landon would become one of those people by dying at the age of 54.
In a role reversal, Clyde (Eddie Quillan), the cranky old man Jonathan hitches a ride with in the beginning of the pilot, was Kavendish, a cranky hitchhiker on an episode of Little House on the Prairie (S7 E9 "The In-Laws").
Estelle Wicks, played by Helen Hayes complains about being around all these old people and she does not belong there. This is an in-joke since Helen Hayes was 83 when this was filmed, making her the oldest actor in this episode.
During the scene in which Jonathan, an angel, uses heavenly power to help Mark outside the bar, one of the drunks Jonathan fights off is dressed head to toe in blue denim and a black medicine hat. This is possibly a back-handed reference to The Trial of Billy Jack (1974), in which the title character, often scene wearing denims and a black medicine hat, goes on a vision quest in which he hallucinates beating up Jesus Christ.