White Collar

Season 1

Pilot

1. Neal tells Peter that Peter could get him out of prison and into FBI custody, and that there was precedent of other people doing the same thing. One of them was the real case of Frank Abagnale who pretended to be a pilot, doctor and lawyer whose story was told in the movie Catch Me if You Can.
2. During the scene where Neal is shaving, Matt Bomer states he cut himself and was bleeding quite badly but this was later edited out.
3. The writing on the note left by Neal for Peter at the motel was done by CGI. This was because the writing couldn't be discerned on film, even when a sharpie pen was used.
4. While filming the driving scene in the rain, Matt Bomer insists Tim DeKay was the reason he's still alive. They were really driving around the streets of New York City with lights strapped to the hood with the sound guy in the backseat trying to get them to turn off the wipers and they almost wrecked.
5. The first scene Matt Bomer and Tim DeKay shot together was the scene in which Neal's coming down the stairs and does the hat trick.
6. The scene with the aerial shot of cop cars pulling up in front of a building was bought from the "The Thomas Crown Affair" since it was cheaper to buy than film.
7. The photo of Peter and Elle on vacation is really a photo of Tiffani Thiessen and her husband on their honeymoon - Tim DeKay's head is just photoshopped onto Brady's body.
8. The pilot was filmed a year before the rest of the series.
9. The role of Jones didn't originally exist. Jeff Eastin decided at the last minute to cast Sharif Atkins into the show and originally just wrote him to have most of the misc FBI lines he had written for just essentially extras to say. Later, the role of Jones would be expanded upon.
10. A clip of a bike being ridden during one of the scene changes was a clip used in the Spider-Man movie (2002), according to the audio commentary.
11. Neal's line in the car, "Call Dr Phil" after Peter insults him while they are talking about Peter forgetting his anniversary was ad-libbed.
12. In the commentary, Tiffani Thiessen mentions the food on the dinner plate - when Peter is late getting home from work - was dog food so the dog would be able to eat it with no issues.
13. The scenes with Neal in prison were filmed in a real prison in New York.
14. A lot of scenes were shot at night, but played as if they were during the day.
15. The pilot was filmed in the winter, unlike the rest of the show where it was usually in the summer.
16. Diana's shirt was originally orange. Jeff Eastin mentions in the commentary they had to digitally change the color to yellow since it didn't read well on camera.
17. The hotel Peter takes Neal to as his "new home" is the Keller Hotel (interesting name considering Keller is the last name of Neal's arch nemesis, Matthew Keller - unknown if this was on purpose) located at 150 Barrow St in the West Village area of Manhattan.

Threads

1. Springbank whiskey mentioned in this episode, White Collar - Threads ~1.2; is from the Springbank distillery in Campbeltown. Founded in 1828, it is the oldest independent family owned distillery in Scotland.

Book of Hours

1. The map that is revealed on the wine bottle is of Midtown Manhattan

Flip of the Coin

1. While Mozzie describes the titular coin as an Islamic Dinar from the Abbasid dynasty, the coin shown is actually an Achaemenid coin depicting Darius the great. The Achaemenid coin shown actually predates the Abbasid dynasty by over a thousand years.
2. First mention of the last name Mitchell. Elizabeth's friend married a guy a guy with that last name. In other episodes it is Elizabeth's maiden name and later it is also listed as Sarah Ellis mothers maiden name as well.
3. While, Caffrey's correction of Aimes' comment about the Greeks ending Ptolemaic rule is partially correct in that it was in fact ended by the Romans, the ruler he mentioned was Ptolemy I Soter (367 BCE - 283 BCE), the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The death he assigns the end of the dynasty to is factually correct, Cleopatra VII (69 BCE - 12 August 30 BCE). Her co-ruler at the time was did not have 'Soter' in his name: Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor or 'Caesarion;' although he did die on the same date (12 August 30 BCE). It is possible (but confusing) that Caffrey was referring to the entire dynasty as Soter's reign, explaining his mention of the name.

The Portrait

1. The whole letter from Kate found at Grand Central reads: "Dear Neal, Heard you're looking for me. Wish I could explain more but time is not on our side. Know that you're my friend, my only lover. You consume my thoughts. Every day I miss you more, but you need to stop looking. No one can deny what we have, but it's over. Please move on. Kate"
2. The first appearance of Peter's beloved deviled ham sandwich. Tim DeKay mentions in a commentary for a later episode he actually dislikes them and had a sort-of deviled tofu sandwich instead and that Tiffani Thiessen refused to even be around either sandwich due to the smell.

All In

1. When Neal and Burke hide in the warehouse, the title on the coffee is in Hebrew.
2. When Neal sits down to play his first game, he looks at the grey headed Chinese man and says " I know, don't get them wet and don't feed them after midnight" this is a reference to the film "Gremlins" and the Chinaman who sold the 'pet'.

Free Fall

1. The name of the bakery Mozzie buys for Neal is "The Greatest Cake" which said aloud sounds like "The Great Escape".
2. Neal spinning back and forth in the chair in the conference room was inspired by the fact Matt Bomer was doing it in between takes and the director liked the idea Neal might be bored enough to.
3. Peter cuffing Neal's hands in front and then draping his jacket over them to make it more considerate was Tim DeKay's idea while shooting.
4. Matt Bomer shot his scenes in the judge's office alone....the actor playing the judge filmed on another day.
5. This episode first establishes that while Neal does lie for a living, he never lies to Peter.
6. The scene in which Neal "disappears" into a crowd after being on the phone with Peter wasn't CGI or special effects and wasn't even intentional. Matt Bomer happened to just step away at the right moment after filming and it showed up looking like he disappeared and Jeff Eastin decided to use the footage.
7. In the store, about half the models are actually models and the other half were mannequins.
8. Murray Bartlett and Willie Garson previously worked together on an episode of Sex and the City.
9. After Neal escapes Peter tells Fowler they're going to catch him with road blocks and wanted posters. In the pilot episode Peter says you can't catch Neal with road blocks and wanted posters
10. Unlike the Pilot in which all the prison scenes were filmed in a real prison, this episode (and the ones after) all prison scenes are shot on a set.
11. Near the end of the episode, when the White Collar team is celebrating clearing Neal's name, it was real champagne poured into the cups. Matt Bomer mentions it on the commentary and luckily he noticed after the first take and started spitting it out between takes while others kept rolling with the champagne and got a little drunk.

Hard Sell

1. While filming White Collar, Tim DeKay rented an apartment from Jonathan Tucker (Avery).
2. Neal smacking the chess pieces off the board wasn't CGI - Matt Bomer really did it and one hit the camera. In the commentary he mentions he ended up with a large bruise on his hands due to the pieces being made out of a heavier metal.
3. The laptop Peter uses to check his email appears to belong to Robert Ludemann, graphic designer on this episode. Many of the emails appear to be actual messages sent to Ludemann, including his call sheet for Law & Order: For the Defense (2009) as well as messages from Kevin L. Raper, with whom Ludemann worked on _'White Collar (2009)', Law & Order (1990) and later Person of Interest (2011), and Mark Newell who Ludemann would later work with on Delivery Man (2013). The emails containing information about the case are from Jeff Butcher, property master on this episode.
4. The bar in which Neal meets Avery is actually a library dressed up as a bar.
5. Matt Bomer was actually able to make the shots while skeet shooting due to having had experience using a gun as a kid for hunting with his dad.
6. In the commentary, Matt Bomer and Tim DeKay both talk about how Matt kept holding his breath (unintentionally) each take until he almost passed out for real.
7. When Peter checks his email for information on Avery the Stock Exchange manipulator, there is an email from the "Law and Order Production Office" (Law & Order (1990) being a popular detective series). The email he actually checks is seemingly an update on his student loan interest rates, nothing to do with the case.
8. At one point during this episode, Neil uses the line, "life comes down to a few moments...this is one of them.". This same line was also spoken by Charlie Sheen's character, Bud Fox, in Wall Street.
9. When Neal is talking to Avery's partner, Reed, mentioning the plan, Reed hits a button that tints the windows. This also wasn't CGI. The location they filmed at had a button that really did tint the windows.
10. Neal appears to already be wanting to stay with the FBI after his sentence. His prison sentence is four years, but once he finds out about the 10-year pin, he asks Peter if he'll get one, implying he is already considering staying with the FBI.

Bad Judgment

1. 05:39 into the episode, the document Peter is looking at, comes from a law firm named, Dewey Cheatem & Howe. This is an old joke; AK.A., "Do we cheat 'em, and how?"
2. Incorrectly regarded as a goof, the amount of change the retired cop leaves on the table actually is $4.76 and the penny is underneath of the dime closest to Washington's face.
3. Neal and Mozzie use the old board game "Uncle Wiggily" when planning the theft of the video tape.

Vital Signs

1. In the commentary for the episode, Jeff Eastin (creator of the show) mentions there was a prank script sent to Willie Garson about Mozzie's fate in the clinic. In the prank script, Mozzie gets lobotomized and the end of the episode is Mozzie in a wheelchair while Neal and June cry in the background. Jeff Eastin says he never heard back from Willie, so he's not sure if he read it or just was going to accept it.

Home Invasion

1. In the home towards the beginning of the episode - where they find Pierre - is a real home and not a set. The chandelier is worth a half million dollars. The art is all Dutch and real and costs more than most museums have. The actors were told touch as little as possible.

Bottlenecked

1. After Peter meets Keller, he refers to him as the anti-Neil, a bizzaro version. Peter appeared in the bizzaro world episode of Seinfeld where Elaine meets a bizzaro version of the entire group.
2. In an effort to stall the auction and keep Keller from getting away, Mozzie bids 1 million dollars on the wine bottle in a scene that oddly resembles Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.

Front Man

1. One of Matt Bomer's favorite episodes - he mentions it in the White Collar Live Chat they had during season one.

Out of the Box

1. In this episode, Diana's girlfriend's name is revealed to be Christy. In real life, Marsha Thompson's sister is named Christy.
2. In the pool scene, it's filmed in the same building as the puzzle scene from Free Fall. In the commentary, it's also mentioned the actors were freezing cold since it was shot in the winter in NYC and the heater on the pool hadn't been turned on ahead of time.
3. The painting Mozzie uses to cover up the plans was painted by a set decorator in 20 mins.
4. In the scene which Peter punches Fowler, Tim DeKay accidentally punched Noah Emmerich. The blood in the teeth was the actor's actual blood.
5. Last appearance of Natalie Morales as Lauren Cruz.