The actress who plays Avery's date (Lio Tipton) to Jim's banquet dinner starred as one half of a couple with Jake McDorman on the short-lived NBC show Manhattan Love Story (2014).
Tyne Daly played the role of 'Mama Rose' in the 1989 Broadway revival of "Gypsy". Bette Midler's turn to play 'Mama Rose' was in the 1993 CBS t.v. movie of the same tittle, "Gypsy".
Candace Bergen and John Larroquette played love interests on the show, "Boston Legal" (2004-2008). They also co-starred on Broadway in the 2012 revival of Gore Vidal's "The Best Man."
When Murphy's date says she can just say "I don't recall," he is poking fun at former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. When Sessions was being vetted for the job of Attorney General if there was a question he didn't want to answer he would say, "I don't recall."
At the banquet dinner Bette Midler's character says she'll "be the wings beneath" the wheelchair of the elderly man she is pushing, paraphrasing her song "Wind Beneath My Wings."