Elka was only going to be in the pilot. Betty White's rising popularity made the producers offer her a regular job.
The house has real pictures of the actresses and their families.
When the show first began in early 2010, Wendie Malick, Valerie Bertinelli, and Jane Leeves were supposed to be playing characters in their late 40s. Malick was 60 in 2010.
This is Betty White's first long running series, after Golden Girls (1985) and Mary Tyler Moore (1970), not to win her an Emmy. She received a nomination for the first season, and won back-to-back SAG awards.
Although Wendie Malick plays a woman in her 40's and Georgia Engel plays a woman in her 80's-90, they were actually both in their 60's during the filming of the show. Engel was only born 2 years before Malick.