The episode is named for St. Elsewhere Unit Production Manager Abby Singer, who worked as a production manager, producer, and director in television and film from the 1950s through the 1990s. His name had, by 1988, been coined in Hollywood in the phrase, "Abby Singer shot" describing the second-to-last shot of a day of filming, or of a film itself. "The Abby Singer Show", when filmed, was known to be the penultimate episode of St. Elsewhere.
Stock footage from The Towering Inferno (1974) is used for the high-rise building fire and footage of fire trucks racing down city streets. The St. Eligius awards dinner, a party being held dozens of floors above a fire in a high-rise, is a premise taken directly from the movie. Dr. Roxanne Turner even name drops the movie, calls the building a "towering inferno".
Judith Barsi played the dying child Debbie Oppenheimer. This was her final acting role to be released before she and her mother Maria were murdered by her father József on July 25, 1988, only nine weeks after this episode aired. A Family Again (1988), The Land Before Time (1988) and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) were all released posthumously.
Tom Poston plays Jack Morrison's father. At one point, he looks across the room and says, "Looks like they could use some help over there. I'm kind of a handyman." This is a joke referring to Poston's other role as George Utley, a handyman on the comedy series Newhart (1982).
Steve Allen quips at the end of the awards dinner "Tonight's Show's over." Allen was the host of The Tonight Show (1953) from 1953 to 1957.