As a tribute to the London-based detective Sherlock Holmes, House's home address is 221B.
House wears the watch Kutner gives him as a Secret Santa gift until the series finale; it is a small sign of House's humanity.
One of the movie posters in Dr. James Wilson's (Robert Sean Leonard) office is Orson Welles's 1958 film Touch of Evil. In the film, Welles plays a detective with a lame leg who solves crimes entirely through his intuition; this character is an inspiration for Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie).
According to series creator David Shore, House was inspired by the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle in his 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet. Holmes, in turn, was inspired by Dr. Joseph Bell, a real doctor specializing in diagnostic medicine who was Doyle's teacher and mentor when he was a university student. House also uses Holmesian deductive techniques to diagnose his patients' problems. Some of the parallels between the two characters are as follows: Both are known for their drug use and their desire (and ability) to solve the seemingly unsolvable. House's apartment number is 221B, just like Sherlock Holmes's famous Baker Street address. House's close friendship with Dr. James Wilson mirrors the relationship between Holmes and Dr. Watson. Also, despite being best friends, House and Wilson address each other only by their last names, just as Holmes and Watson do. In the pilot episode, the patient's last name is Adler; this is a nod to Irene Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia, the first of the Sherlock Holmes stories. In the second-season finale, the man who shoots House is named Moriarty; this is the same name as Holmes's greatest enemy, Professor Moriarty. In the fifteenth episode of the third season ("Half-Wit"), House fakes cancer; this resembles the story "The Adventure of the Dying Detective," in which Holmes feigns a deadly Eastern disease to catch a criminal. In the eleventh episode of the fifth season ("Joy to the World"), Wilson gives House Joseph Bell's Manual of the Operations of Surgery as a Christmas gift. Bell is the real doctor who inspired Sherlock Holmes. Wilson jokingly claims that House was once interested in a patient named Irene Adler; this is a nod to the character who outwitted Holmes. House once believes that his biological father was a family friend named Thomas Bell; this echoes the name of Dr. Joseph Bell, Holmes's real-life inspiration. In the series finale, House fakes his own death; this mirrors the belief that Sherlock Holmes died after his final struggle with Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes has also inspired 21st-century fictional detectives: Dr. Gil Grissom and D.B. Russell from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Detective Robert Goren from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Adrian Monk from Monk, Shawn Spencer from Psych and Patrick Jane from The Mentalist, among others.
House says, "Have you never seen Dead Poets Society?" Robert Sean Leonard played Neil Perry in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society.
In the second-season, twenty-fourth episode "No Reason," when Dr. House is shot and taken to the hospital, the date of birth on his hospital wristband appears as June 11, 1959; this is the same as Hugh Laurie's date of birth.
House is based on Sherlock Holmes, but Holmes was also inspired by Dr. Bell, a doctor specializing in diagnosis whom Arthur Conan Doyle met while studying medicine.
After receiving an honorary doctorate of fine arts, television satirist Stephen Colbert placed pictures of other famous television doctors who inspired him on the mantelpiece on his show's set. One of them was Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Laurie. The others were Bill Cosby as Dr. Cliff Huxtable and Noah Drake from General Hospital. In return, the creators of this series placed a picture of Colbert on Gregory House's desk in the fifth season, and it could occasionally be seen. Because Laurie's series won an Emmy against Colbert's show and Laurie received an OBE (Order of the British Empire) while Colbert did not (which he could not, as he is not British), Colbert added House to his enemies list.
In one of the promotional posters, Hugh Laurie appeared wrapped in two snakes with a pair of wings behind him; this was a recreation of the Greek Caduceus symbol. International fans may also find this confusing, because the correct symbol is the staff of Asclepius, which has a single snake and no wings. In the US, however, the Caduceus is used just as commonly as the correct Rod of Asclepius and became popular at the turn of the century. Because the Caduceus is a symbol associated with the Greek god Hermes, its use has long been a subject of debate and satire in the American medical community.
The production company credit at the end of the series, Bad Hat Harry Productions (executive producer Bryan Singer's company) ("That's some bad hat, Harry"), is a nod to the film Jaws (1975).
Dr. Gregory House's (Hugh Laurie) most famous line, "Everybody lies," had been used about a year and a half before the pilot episode in another medical series, the comedy Scrubs. In the second-season, twelfth episode "My New Old Friend," when Dr. Chris Turk (Donald Faison) cannot stop an elderly woman from going home after she says she is well enough to drive and needs to pick up her grandchildren, Dr. Bob Kelso (Ken Jenkins) says, "Everybody lies, Dr. Turk."
In Dr. James Wilson's (Robert Sean Leonard) office, there were posters for Robert Redford's Ordinary People (1980), Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958) and Sir Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958).
House is seen throwing playing cards into a hat several times on the show. This is a nod to the same trick performed by Bertie Wooster, the character Hugh Laurie played in the 1990s series Jeeves and Wooster.
Actor Meat Loaf appeared as a guest star in 2009. Later in the season, a character named "Dr. Paulson" was introduced for one episode (season five, episode twenty, "Simple Explanation"); this may be a nod to Robert Paulson, Meat Loaf's character in Fight Club (1999).
Coincidentally or not, Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps) shares the same name as the lead character played by Topher Grace on FOX's That '70s Show (1998).
His being named Gregory House is no coincidence. The word "gregarious" means sociable; although House is the exact opposite toward strangers, he is quite sociable with his small inner circle.
Hugh Laurie once likened House to Sherlock Holmes. House's similarity to Holmes can also be seen in his living at number 221, just like Sherlock's address at 221b Baker Street.
Executive producer Bryan Singer had previously directed X2, which starred Brian Cox. Cox had played Joseph Bell, the inspiration for Holmes, in The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.