During the live episodes, the cast members performed twice, once for the East coast and once for the West coast.
During filming the series, Ryan Stiles introduced Drew Carey to the British show Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1988). Carey was so impressed that he pitched an American remake of it to the ABC TV network. ABC greenlit it, and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1998) was created.
Only Drew Carey (Drew) and Diedrich Bader (Oswald) appear in all 233 episodes.
Only the first season was released on DVD or digitally. The other eight seasons have never been released on digital or DVD. As of 2021, a compilation DVD is the only disc available containing select episodes from other seasons. As of august 14 2024 all seasons are available on Plex for streaming free. Some music has been dubbed over and a few episodes are missing because of copyright issues because of music.
Because of the shows being filmed in advance, the April Fool's Day contest winners would be announced by having Drew open his mouth and the winner's name being dubbed in. In syndication, there is now a voice-over done by Drew saying, "This is an obsolete message."