The caller at the beginning of the episode is Mary Steenburgen, who is married in real life to Ted Danson who plays Sam Malone on the TV series "Cheers."
Martin's (John Mahoney) "Weeping Lotus" case is a parody of the still unsolved 1947 "Black Dahlia" murder.
The celebrity caller in this episode is Mary Steenburgen. She plays Marjorie, an acrophobe who calls in to say that she's almost conquered her fears.
While at the basketball game, Frasier tells Niles that he's done some reading and that "it seems the key for the Sonics [to win] is to stop Starks from penetrating and dumping the ball off for easy baskets." The player he refers to is John Starks, who at the time (1995) played guard for the New York Knicks.
During his embarrassment about his monkey theory Frasier tries to make a joke by asking "Who's he going to get to defend him, Clarence Darrow?" Darrow was the iconic lawyer who defended John Scopes in the famous "monkey trial" in 1925. Although none of Martin's cop friends know what he's talking about in fact most everybody in law-enforcement would be familiar with the case.