History Trivia / ColdCase

** Played straight in season 2's Creatures of the Night - the theater showing Rocky Horror was the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena, California.

** Creator/ElenaSatine gets to show off her powerful singing voice in her appearance as Nadia in "Triple Threat".

** In a season 4 episode, the VictimOfTheWeek's daughter is played by sisters Gigi and Lily Goff.

** The episode "Mindhunters" is very similar to ''Series/WithoutATrace'''s "Doppelganger"--the detectives discover a SerialKiller and interrogate him relentlessly, only for him to outsmart them and talk in circles around them. They ultimately have no choice but to release him, as they have no real evidence and he hasn't confessed.

** Season 5's "The Road" has elements from season two's "Mind Hunters" and "The Woods": a SerialKiller who abducts strong-willed women to psychologically torture them, the killer upon being cornered by Lilly tries to goad her into killing him and "John Smith" even at one points yells out "Don't you turn away from me!" just as George Marks did.
** Season 6's "One Small Step" is a {{Gender Flip}}ped remake of season two's "The Sleepover": a "geeky" kid starts hanging out with a trio of "cool" kids, the leader is a well-off SpoiledBrat from a troubled home who bullies the kid along with their two minions, the adult lives of the trio include [[AddledAddict addiction/mental illness]], they end up no longer being friends in the present day, and the leader [[LackOfEmpathy shows no empathy or remorse for the victim or their deaths]]. The main differences between the two episodes though is that [[spoiler:in the later episode, one of the friends commits suicide out of guilt, shame and mental illness, the leader was the one who did the killing out of jealousy instead of another kid in the group in the heat of the moment, and there were more genuinely likable people within the episode other than the victim.]]
** Season 7's "Almost Paradise" has many similarities with season 3's "Family". Both of the victims were high school students murdered by hit and run on the night of their proms in the late 80's, [[spoiler:and both of the perpetrators were members of the school faculty.]]

** Alicia Ziegler appeared in the opening flashback of "[[Recap/ColdCaseS1E7ATimeToHate A Time to Hate]]" as a friend of the girlfriend of the VictimOfTheWeek. She also played the VictimOfTheWeek in "[[Recap/ColdCaseS3E17Superstar Superstar]]"

** Most of the plot important Japanese American characters from "Family 8108" share the same ethnicity as their actors.

** Also, the season one episode "The Letter" [[note]]which involved the brutal rape and murder of a Black woman by White men in 1939[[/note]] has the actual murder scene changed from its original 2004 airing after complaints were made about it.
** Averted for years with the season two episode "Strange Fruit" [[note]]where a Black ''teenage boy'' is brutally beaten and lynched in 1963 by White supremacists in front of a little girl[[/note]] which was not edited until 2020 when the entire episode became banned (see above). Similarly in the season five episode "Family 8108", several anti-Asian slurs are left intact.

* IronyAsSheIsCast: Hey remember Tom Wilson, the actor who played eight different versions of the same character in ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture''? In his 10's, 40's, 70's, three different timelines, and as his IdenticalGrandson and Great-Grandfather? He's in ''Cold Case''! As a character who appears once in a flashback because he died before the main characters could interview him.

** Season 6's "One Small Step" is a remake of season two's "The Sleepover": a "geeky" kid starts hanging out with a trio of "cool" kids, the leader is a well-off SpoiledBrat from a troubled home who bullies the kid along with their two minions, the adult lives of the trio include [[AddledAddict addiction/mental illness,]] they end up no longer being friends in the present day and the leader shows no empathy or remorse for the victim or their deaths. They main differences between the two episodes though is that [[spoiler:in the later episode, one of the friends commits suicide out of guilt, shame and mental illness, the leader was the one who did the killing out of jealousy instead of another kid in the group in the heat of the moment and there were more genuinely likable people within the episode other than the victim.]]

** Josie Sutton was intended to be a series regular in season 3 with the first five episodes meant to test waters for her but her actress Sarah Brown decided not to become a series regular, thus she departs in the fifth episode with Kat Miller being introduced three episodes later as her replacement and eventually being PromotedToOpeningCredits in the season's 13th episode.

** Had the show continued for another season, then Det. Rush and Agent Cavanaugh [[RealLifeWritesThePlot would have became a couple]], while Rush would have been transferred to the Federal Cold Case Unit in New York City. Additionally, there were plans for the other main characters to gain their own love interests.

* BannedEpisode[=/=]DistancedFromCurrentEvents: As of 2020, the episode "Strange Fruit" (which involves the lynching of a black teenager in 1963) has been removed from Start [=TV=]'s lineup due to the police-related killings of African-Americans Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and was replaced with season 5 episode "Justice"[[note]]which revolves the murder of a popular college student and serial rapist[[/note]] and "Andy in C Minor"[[note]]in which a deaf teenager is murdered[[/note]].

** Vietnamese Canadian actor David Hyunh and Chinese American actor Ron Yuan as Japanese Americans Billy Takahashi and Shinji Nakamura in the flashbacks of "Family 8108".

* RealitySubtext: The Philadelphia PD suffering budget cuts in "Hoodrats" was inspired by the show's budget cut that affected the seventh and final season, hence it would be the last episode to have the entire cast until near the end of the season.

* ActorSharedBackground: Scotty Valens is Cuban American, like his actor Danny Pino.

* FakeNationality: Korean American Creator/SungKang plays a Cambodian immigrant in "Who's Your Daddy?"
** Vietnamese Canadian actor David Hyunh and Chinese American actor Ron Yuan plays Japanese Americans Billy Takahashi and Shinji Nakamura in the flashbacks of "Family 8108".

** Most of the plot important Japanese American characters from "Family 8108" share the ethnicity as their actors.

** For the episode "Family 8108", the actors who played the present-day versions of the characters seen in the WWII-set flashbacks were actually 25-30 years younger than their characters, who were meant to be in their early to mid eighties.

* ThePeteBest:

** For the episode "Family 8108", Kim Miyori was 56 when she played the older version of Evelyn Takahashi, who was meant to be in her early eighties.

* UnderageCasting: For the episode "The Letter", the actors who played present-day versions of the characters seen in the 1939-set flashback were actually a lot younger than their characters, who were meant to be in either in their early seventies to late eighties during the present day.
** Lillian Lehman was 56 when she played the older version of Blanche Debbins.
** Creator/LouBeattyJr was in his fifties when he played the older version of Manross Delaney.
** Creator/GeoffreyLewis was 68 when he played the older version of Nathan "Jonesy" Jones.
** Zoe Cotton was in her fifties when she played the older version of Arletta Marion.

* Zoe Cotton was in her fifties when she played the older version of Arletta Marion.

** Had the show continued for another season, then Det. Rush and Agent Cavanaugh [[RealLifeWritesThePlot would have became a couple]], while Rush would have been transferred to the Federal Cold Case Unit in New York City. Additionally, there were plans for the other main characters to gain their own love interests.

** As of Sept 2021, the entire series is on Creator/HBOMax and Roku TV.