Trivia / Switched at Birth

• Actor Allusion:
  • Bay says Toby will be played by Zac Efron in The Movie.
  • It's probably a coincidence, but this isn't the first time Austin Butler has played a love interest to Lucas Grabeel's sister.
  • Similarly coincidental, but this is the second time Vanessa Marano's character is introduced when she does a DNA test to find her real father.
  • For the second time, a character played by Lucas Grabeel weighs his interest in both baseball and the arts, and is criticized for the latter.
  • Meredith Baxter plays the mom to Lea Thompson's character. Both are most famous for their respective roles playing Michael J. Fox's mother.
  • In Season 2, Bay crushes on a guy with the same progressive/intermittent hearing loss as Katie Leclerc.
  • "Ecce Mono" shows an Alternate Universe with elements borrowed from Back to the Future Part II, including a Lea Thompson character in a loveless marriage. There's also a scene where Daphne and Bay look at Regina's grave with flashlights, which is shot almost exactly like a similar scene in BTTF 2.
  • In one episode, Toby tells Bay to "get your head in the game," which is a song from High School Musical. According to Lucas Grabeel's Twitter, it was a coincidence.
  • In "Dance Me to the End of Love" Travis wants to learn to dance, and Toby sarcastically asks if he wants to win Dancing With the Stars. Angelo and Melody end up giving him a dance lesson, and both Gilles Marini and Marlee Matlin are both past contestants on Dancing With the Stars.
  • Lea Thompson played the birth mother of another couple's child in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
  • In a season 4 episode, when his mother asks him to help with her musical Toby comments that "Musicals aren't really my thing." Uh, huh. Sure, Ryan Evans.
  • Katie Leclerc's first TV role was a bit part on an episode of Veronica Mars in 2005 ... specifically, an episode that featured a character finding out that she was switched at birth.
• Career Resurrection: Rachel Shenton had found it hard to get work after leaving Hollyoaks, as British casting directors dismissed her as "just a soap actress". Getting cast in this led to her reaching new heights, including winning an Oscar for directing The Silent Child.
• The Cast Showoff: Lucas Grabeel and Sean Berdy get to show off their musical skills in the fourth episode.
  • Lea Thompson shows off her singing voice in "Tree of Forgiveness," and ends up singing a duet with Lucas Grabeel.
  • "Dance Me to the End of Love" gives almost everyone (not least former professional dancer Lea Thompson), with their varying degrees of ability, a chance to dance.
  • Kathryn singing Christmas carols is a Running Gag in the season 3 Christmas special.
• Dawson Casting: Zigzagged. Katie Leclerc (Daphne) was born in 1986 (making the scene where she wants to get a fake ID so she can pass for being in her 20s an irony overload) and Lucas Grabeel (Toby) was too old for High School five years ago. Vanessa Marano (Bay) and Sean Berdy (Emmett) were both 17/18 starting out though.
• Defictionalization: You can buy an ebook version of Kathryn Kennish's book about the switch.
• Directed by Cast Member: Lea Thompson's called the shots on "Prudence, Avarice, Lust, Justice, Anger," "Your Body is a Battleground," "Fog and Storm and Rain," and "Memory (The Heart)" while D.W. Moffett directed "Girl on the Cliff," "Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows" and "This Has to Do with Me."
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: All the Deaf characters are played by actors with some sort of hearing loss in Real Life. RJ Mitte, who plays Campbell, is disabled in real life, although he has mild cerebral palsy and can walk normally, while his character was injured in a snowboarding accident and is in a wheelchair.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Toby's first wife Nikki is American, but played by Australian actress Cassi Thomson.
  • Although Rachel Shenton is English, Lily Summers is an American brought up in England from the age of 10, explaining her accent.
  • Constance Marie is Mexican-American, not Puerto Rican.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: More of a case of Ironic In Hindsight - Melody confronts Matthew, telling him to stay the hell away from her son. In Spring Awakening, Marlee Matlin plays Frau Gabor, whose son Melchior is accidentally guilty of (and blamed for) leading his friend Moritz (played by Daniel Durant) to commit suicide.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: In Lea Thompson's film debut, her character works at the same place as a character played by Bess Armstrong, who plays Professor Marillo in Switched.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Elisa is played by Zoey Deutch, Lea Thompson's daughter.
  • Bay's aunt, who died of a brain aneurysm in the 1980's and appeared only in an old photograph, was played by Laura Marano, Vanessa Marano's younger sister.

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