The Pretender/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acting for Two:
    • Sydney and his twin brother Jacob are played by the same actor.
    • The actress who plays Miss Parker in the present also plays her mother in flashbacks.
    • Jarod's clone, being considerably younger than him, is played by one of the actors who plays Young Jarod in flashbacks.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • Miss Parker is played by Andrea Parker, who previously was cast in the pilot of JAG as Lieutenant Parker. Doubles as The Danza, obviously. Interestingly, both are unintentional, as the character of Miss Parker was named before she was cast.
    • In the first-season episode "Jaraldo!", Lisa Howard plays a reporter who befriends Jarod. In Days of Our Lives, Lisa Howard played April Ramirez, a love interest to Michael T. Weiss' character Dr. Mike Horton.
  • The Danza:
    • Mr Raines's favorite Mook, Willie (played by Willie Gault), and Miss Parker's favorite Mook, Sam (played by Sam Ayers).
    • Miss Parker herself is played by Andrea Parker, but this is a coincidence: the character was named before she was cast.
  • Fake Brit: Pamela Gidley as Mr Lyle's sidekick, Brigitte. After half a season, the writers had Brigitte drop the accent and admit that she'd been putting it on all along, to the lampshade-festooned unsurprise of every other character who had ever heard her speak.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Technology Marches On: Jarod's library of mini-discs was a lot more impressively high-tech when the show started than it is to a viewer now.
  • Write Who You Know: "Gigolo Jarod" has an in-universe example, when it's revealed that Jarod has written a novel, The Saddest Little Valentine, whose protagonist is basically Miss Parker.
  • Written-In Infirmity: In "Dragon House", a handyman Jarod talks to happens to have his arm in a cast -- because the actor broke the arm shortly before filming.

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