The Drescher/Jacobson team were actively scouring Ellen for ideas and plot-lines to steal. Audrey asks Ellen if she is still supporting "Little Miguel" from Peru on 23 cents a day. Exactly a year later, Mommy and Mai (1997) would air, where Fran quips, upon meeting the Asian young woman she allegedly sponsored as a girl: "Boy, you really filled out on 17 cents a day!".
This premise---of an outsider making the regular cast uncomfortable at the holiday table---would be copied by Thanks, Man (2003) exactly 9 years later, when their family is having Thanksgiving dinner and they force a transient to wait outside in the cold. Here, they all end up in the hall, to avoid the guest; there, they all end up outside with that man.