James Gandolfini's voice is distinctly different in this first episode than it would be in future ones. After this episode, Gandolfini used a dialect coach to sound more like a mobster from Newark, New Jersey.
This pilot was filmed in the summer of 1997. The show was picked up for series a year later.
The main reason James Gandolfini was cast instead of Michael Rispoli, who was also considered for the role of Tony Soprano, is that David Chase felt that, while both actors were likable and could make that work for Tony, Michael was a much more lighthearted person than James. Chase felt the elements of self-darkness would be a better fusion into the character of Tony.
In this episode, the pork store used as the mob's hangout is named Centanni's Meat Market, an actual butcher shop in Elizabeth, New Jersey. But producers soon after found an abandoned location in Kearny, NJ, converted it into the fictional Satriale's Pork Store, and used that site throughout the rest of the series. But mistakenly--or indifferently--a quick image of Satriale's, not Centanni's, is included in this pilot's opening montage, as it also would be for the next eight years of the "Sopranos."
This marks the only episode in which the scenes shot inside the famous Soprano home, were filmed inside a real house in North Caldwell, New Jersey. After this episode, a replica of the inside house was built and used to film the rest of the series.