In the 2013 book "Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad", David Chase (a writer and Executive Producer on this show before creating The Sopranos (1999)) recalled his impatience with some of the network's strategies for marketing the show, especially NBC airing commercials featuring Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". "If I'd had a gun, I would have killed somebody. What fucking wonderful world? Ku Klux Klan, Mississippi civil rights workers being murdered, housewives from Detroit being gunned down in their cars, black kids being lynched? They were trying to sell a series about human pain as a cute story about some cute little boy and his nanny. And it fucking made me want to puke."
The role of Nathaniel "Nathan" Bedford was played in the pilot by Jason London. When the series was picked up for more episodes, Jason was already committed to filming The Man in the Moon (1991). He suggested that his twin brother, Jeremy, replace him in the series. However, Jason took over the role again in late 1993 for the series' two-hour conclusion ("I'll Fly Away: Then & Now") when Jeremy was shooting another project.
Forrest Bedford and Nathan Bedford are both named for Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate officer and founding member of the Ku Klux Klan. The housekeeper Lily Harper is named after Harper Lee, author of Matar a un Ruiseñor (1962). The latter was a major inspiration for the series, as the creators thought it would be interesting to explore the life of Atticus Finch's housekeeper Calpurnia outside of the Finch household.
The state in which the series takes place is never identified by name, nor through any identifying characteristics. Characters refer to counties rather than parishes, thus eliminating Louisiana. Characters also speak of Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and Mississippi, thus presumably eliminating them. We later learn that Forrest works in the Fifth District. If this refers to the Fifth Circuit of Courts, then the setting is most likely Georgia, as every other state in that district has been referred to.
During the early 1990s, creators Joshua Brand and John Falsey were working on two shows simultaneously: the quirky "fish-out-of-water" comedy Northern Exposure and the civil-rights-era family drama I'll Fly Away. The two shows had writing and production offices in the same building, across the hall from each other. In the 2013 book "Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad", David Chase (who was a writer and executive producer on I'll Fly Away before later going on to create The Sopranos) talked about how much he had disliked the other Brand/Falsey show being made across the hall from his show: "The people who worked on Northern Exposure thought they were curing cancer and reinventing drama. To me, it was so precious, so self-congratulatory. It strained so hard for whimsy. We'd go to the Emmys every year and they'd get these awards and we'd get nothing. It wasn't that we really wanted these Emmys, but that show was being celebrated to the hilt and I felt it was a fraud at its core." But after Brand and Falsey left this show, Chase took over, and he was its showrunner from late 1993 until the end of its run in 1995. Chase said that he "did it for the money."