TV Series Trivia

The show was originally to be made for ABC (the American one) with Michael Richards starring. When he pulled out, so did ABC. However, when the show was successful on the USA network, ABC agreed to carry second-run episodes (much in the same way that USA carries second-run episodes of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (1999)). This only lasted for a year.

In France, the first episode (in 2 parts) was re-edited into a single 44 minute episode, so half the minutes were cut and are still unpublished in France.

All episode titles begin with "Mr. Monk..."

The characters of Captain Leland Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Randall Disher (named Randall Deacon in the pilot) serve much the same function in Monk as did Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes stories. This relationship may have inspired these characters' names: taking the first two letters of each name in order - LE from "Leland", ST from "Stottlemeyer", RA from "Randall" and DE from "Deacon" - spells out "Lestrade".

The show's writers occasionally satirize Monk's near-perfect memory. For example, in "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School" he can't remember if a crime scene on a roof is his 4th or 5th worst nightmare, since he "didn't bring the list".

The sponsoring network used the term "Monkish" to publicize the series. The word describes Adrian's odd behavior but also is a play-on-words that relates to his monk-like isolation.

This was the first show that the USA network filmed in the US. All previous shows were filmed in Canada.

The characters and basic structure of the series were inspired by the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. The character name "Adrian Monk" was intended to be unusual like that of Sherlock Holmes. Other characters correspond to Holmes characters: Sharona Fleming (a nurse) and Dr. Watson; Capt. Stottlemeyer and Inspector Lestrade; and Monk's brother Ambrose and Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's brother).

Adrian Monk contains ten letters, Monk's favorite number.

Producers originally considered offering the role of Sharona Fleming to Queen Latifah.

Mr. Monk's favorite number is 10.

The police station where Stottlemeyer and Disher work as well as a number of crimes throughout the series are said to be located on Vinton Street in San Francisco. However, the real Vinton is in Madison, New Jersey, where series creator Andy Breckman lives.