Production
"Gump Roast" was co-written by Dan Castellaneta and his wife Deb Lacusta, while Mark Kirkland served as director. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on April 21, 2002. The idea for the episode came about when Castellaneta and the other main Simpsons cast members were on hiatus while renegotiating their salaries. During the hiatus, Lacusta and Castellaneta were discussing the film Forrest Gump and questioned whether the stories Gump told actually happened, or if he made them up. They then compared the character to Homer, since they are both dimwitted and have "fumbled into" many different situations. Writing ensued, and when the cast members had settled the payment issue, Castellaneta and Lacusta presented the script to show runner Al Jean, who put the script into production.
The clip in which Homer skis down a mountain is one of the most used clips during events, according to Jean. One of the plot turns in the episode sees Kang and Kodos interrupting the roast. These characters normally only appear in Halloween episodes, however since "Gump Roast" is a clip show and therefore not in The Simpsons canon, Kang and Kodos were included in the episode. Since "Gump Roast," there has not been any more clip shows of The Simpsons. Jean stated in the DVD commentary for the episode, that since the show now produces "trilogy episodes" (episodes that have three separate stories for each act) each season after season 13, making a clip show would be unnecessary.
The song "They'll Never Stop The Simpsons" playing at the end of the episode was written by Simpsons writer Matt Selman and sung by Castellaneta. It is a parody on the song “We Didn't Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, and was originally the same length as the song it was based on. However, because the episode was too long, the song had to be cut to its current length. In 2011, the song was re-recorded with alternative lyrics as a promotional video after The Simpsons was renewed for an additional 24th and 25th season. Castellaneta came in and recorded eight new takes, which was mixed together with some of the original vocals.
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“The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
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—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)