An early episode has Ed defend a client's intellectual property rights. David Letterman, whose company produced the show, was threatened with legal action by NBC over intellectual property rights when he moved his show from NBC to CBS. Both involved what could be called "stupid human tricks".
Ed's ex-wife, Liz was originally played by Janeane Garofalo in the original pilot that was turned down by CBS.
In the season finale, Justin Long (Warren) tells the escort he hired to take with him to the prom, to pretend she is a sophomore at Vassar. Long attended Vassar for 2 years.
Stuckybowl (including the interior) was located in Northvale, New Jersey. (It used to be called Country Club Lanes and was closed down around 1997 before Ed moved in.) It has since been demolished to make way for adult condominiums.
Titled "Stuckeyville", the original CBS pilot was devoted to setting up the premise of the series. It featured Ed's string of misfortunes, his nostalgic return to Stuckeyville, and his fateful encounter with Carol. When the show finally reached the air on NBC, the entire CBS pilot had been edited down to a brief montage at the beginning of the NBC pilot.
The name of Ed's old law firm (Farmer & Sheehan) is an in-joke reference to Late Show with David Letterman (1993) stagehands Pat Farmer and Kenny Sheehan.
Justin Long (Warren) and Ginnifer Goodwin (Diane) who worked together for the first time on "Ed", would go on to play love interests in "He's Just Not That Into You" (2009), and date in real life the same year.