Burn Notice

Season 1

Pilot

1. Gabrielle Anwar improvised kicking Michael awake during her audition. It was later added into the shooting script.
2. The producers took issue with Bruce Campbell shaving for the role. Bruce had insisted on it due to Sam's constant romancing of wealthy women, but the producers insisted he remain unshaved in order to provide contrast to Jeffrey Donovan's clean-cut leading man look. Consequently Bruce is only clean-shaven in his introductory scene.
3. When Michael learns that he's been burned, the voice on the other end of the phone call is series creator Matt Nix.
4. When Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) is talking to David (portrayed by Mauricio Suarez) in his apartment about being bullied at school, he shows David his injuries from when he was attacked just after being notified that he'd been burned. He tells David that he holds 2 Black Belts and was still beaten. Jeffrey Donovan in actuality, is a martial artist having studied various styles for over 20 years, focusing on Brazilian Jujitsu for 6 of those years and holds a Black Belt in Karate.
5. A hurricane-resistant picture window at the restaurant where Sam is meeting with the FBI agents watching Michael shattered from the heat of all the lights being used for the scene.
6. DirecTV sponsored a commercial-free premiere; future airings ran at 90 minutes with the addition of commercials.
7. The main theme song in the UK was different to the rest of the world when it was first shown on the "FX UK" channel. The music used for season 1 is "Men in Black 2" by Mottram and Johnson and can be found here on the www.audionetwork.com site.
8. Fiona's car is a Hyundai Tiberon.

Identity

1. Sam and Fiona identify themselves as Detective Cagney and Detective Lacey. Sharon Gless, who plays Michael's mother Madeline, played Cagney on Cagney & Lacey (1981). Bruce Campbell improvised the reference.
2. This second episode introduces the high ceiling and the metal staircase into Michael's apartment, which were not present previously. In the pilot, the scenes in his apartment were likely shot inside of the actual studio apartment location.

Fight or Flight

1. Although created on their own by Craig S. O'Neill and Jason Tracey, Sam's go-to cover name of "Chuck Finley" is also that of a coworker of Bruce Campbell's father.
2. At approximately 37:35, the villain (played by Ivo Lopez) can be seen leaving a restaurant with his henchmen; the name of the restaurant is "Fredo's", a seeming reference to the character John Cazale in The Godfather (1972), and foreshadowing his implied death at the hands of his associates.

Old Friends

1. Seth Peterson had originally auditioned to play Michael.

Family Business

Unpaid Debts

1. The client for this episode is named Virgil. Virgil is the common name for Publius Vergilius Maro, a Roman poet who wrote some of the most important and famous poems in Latin literature including the Aeneid which is modeled after the Iliad and Odyssey which were written by Homer. When Michael uses a fake name in this episode he introduces himself as Homer.

Broken Rules

1. In Brisco County Jr. Bruce Campbell's nemesis was named John Bly played by Billy Drago.

Wanted Man

1. In the scene after Michael, Fiona and Thomas McKee escape the bounty hunter at Fiona's house, they are at Michael's apartment discussing the plan. When Michael opens his refrigerator, there is a can of SMEAT in the door. SMEAT was used as a fictional food in Waterworld (1995) instead of SPAM.
2. When Michael calls someone on a stolen phone he uses the alias Paco. Paco is the name of a "shared" contact from the second episode Identity.
3. Michael's Libyan contact is named Anwar, which is the last name of Gabrielle Anwar, the actress who plays Fiona Glenanne.
4. When Barry and Sam are listing off One Name famous people, Sam (Bruce Campbell) mentions Spider-Man. Bruce Campbell has cameos in each of the Sam Raimi directed Spider Man movies as well as voices the tour guide in the Spider Man video games.

Hard Bargain

1. Keen viewers will notice a sharp cut after Sam says "Thanks Mike. It's just Photoshop." This is because no matter how many times they tried to keep the scene going after that line, Jeffrey Donovan could not help but lose himself laughing at how Bruce Campbell delivered it. Eventually they just picked the scene up from after the line.

False Flag

1. Fiona says that Sam's old bulletproof vest smells of Old Spice and bourbon. Bruce Campbell, who plays Sam, became spokesman for Old Spice in 2006.
2. Lucy Lawless and Bruce Campbell have worked together before in the long running series Xena Warrior Princess. Lawless played Xena, and Bruce played a recurring guest star named Autolucus. Bruce also played this character on the series Hercules The Legendary Journeys of which Xena was a spin off.
3. Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless would go on to work together again in Ash vs Evil Dead (2015).

Loose Ends, Part 1

1. The case for the drugs is actually the transit case for a AN/USM 323. This is the military version of the Hewlett Packard 8640M. By the way she is carrying it, it is completely empty. The empty case weighs about 25 pounds.
2. Although press releases, on-line listings and cable/satellite companies billed this as "Loose Ends," the official web site, as of October 2007, billed this as "Dead Drop."

Loose Ends, Part 2