Eugene Levy's not so secret callback to Splash

So, his character writes books about fish and he wants to prove that a strange creature exists..

So, did the writers get him BECAUSE they wanted the direct tie back to Splash as an homage.... or did he come up with the idea to make it as much like his splash character as he could since he was there and it was so similar?

All they needed was some other guy to drop change and look up skirts to complete the rip off :D