Quincy, M.E.

The show may have been inspired by the book Where Death Delights by former FBI agent Marshall Houts, and it resembled the earlier Canadian series Wojeck, which also centered on a crusading medical examiner figure.

John Vernon, who played the title role in the Canadian series Wojeck, later guest-starred in the third-season Quincy episode 'Requiem for the Living', a nod to the show's predecessor.

The character of Quincy was loosely modeled on Thomas Noguchi, the famous Los Angeles County coroner nicknamed 'Coroner to the Stars'.

Quincy, M.E. began as 90-minute telefilms within NBC's Sunday Mystery Movie rotation alongside Columbo, McCloud and McMillan before being spun off into its own weekly one-hour series without a traditional pilot episode.

Quincy's first name was never revealed on the show; even actor Jack Klugman claimed not to know it, and would simply reply 'Doctor!' when asked. A business card in one episode shows only the initial 'R. Quincy'.

Jack Klugman refused to appear in the season 2 episode 'Has Anybody Here Seen Quincy?' because he objected to a plot point where a body delivered to the morgue turns out to still be alive, which he found implausible for a medical examiner of Quincy's skill; as a result his character is heard only by phone and never seen.

Klugman was the only regular cast member to appear in the series finale 'The Cutting Edge', which served as a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series about a new clinic that NBC ultimately did not pick up.

Klugman testified before the US Congress in 1982 about orphan drugs, a social issue he had learned about through the show, reflecting how Quincy, M.E. was one of the first American dramas to use episodes to promote social causes.