The "Boy in the Box" is a real Philadelphia cold case from February 1957.
The "Science Club Corn Flake Experiment" was a real experiment conducted between 1946-1953 by Harvard University and MIT.
The "Boy in the Box" case is a real case. The child was identified on December 8, 2022, as then-4-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli. According to reports, the cold case warmed in recent years when volunteers with the Vidocq Society, a Philadelphia crime-solving club, extended a crucial helping hand to the police. The Nonprofit Vidocq Society is made up of former law enforcement personnel and forensic professionals who share an interest in unsolved crimes. a result of connecting recent DNA technology and the assistance of volunteer sleuths working with police to solve the case.
This was Jacqueline Scott's final television acting role before her death on July 23, 2020 at the age of 89.
The Science Club at the Fernwood Orphanage is a reference to actual experiments conducted in the late 1940s and early 1950s at the Fernald State School (originally called The Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded) in Waltham, Massachusetts. The experiments were funded by Quaker Oats and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The children were fed oatmeal laced with radioactive tracers. The studies involved 74 boys, aged 10 to 17. Subjects were given gifts (like Mickey Mouse watches), tickets to Red Sox games, and taken on field trips away from the school. The experiments became public knowledge during a 1995 lawsuit. Quaker claimed they only supplied the oatmeal, but it was clear they were involved in the research for marketing purposes, to find out if their cereal was healthier than their competitor at the time, Grape Nuts. A settlement of $1.85 million was reached in January 1998, to be shared among the surviving subjects who were still alive and part of the lawsuit.