Production
Mike Scully, the writer of the episode, based it on experience in his childhood. Scully was twelve years old when he paid a visit to the Bradlees discount department store in West Springfield, Massachusetts. A "bunch of guys" were shoplifting at the store and they "pressured" Scully into doing it as well. He ended up getting caught outside, and "had one of the most traumatic moments" of his life. "To this day it still terrifies me," Scully said. He jokingly told Variety, "It's great to be paid for reliving the horrors of your life."
The episode was directed by Steven Dean Moore. The show runner of The Simpsons at the time, Bill Oakley, thinks this is one of the most "beautifully" directed episodes of the show. He called the "hand-coloring" in very "vivid" and "bright". The episode is the first Christmas episode the producers had done since the first episode of the show, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". Oakley said that nobody in the writing staff wanted to "try on Christmas" because it was "so famous" as being the first episode.
Lawrence Tierney guest starred in the episode as Don Brodka. Another former show runner, Josh Weinstein, called Tierney's appearance "the craziest guest star experience we ever had". In addition to yelling at and intimidating employees of the show, Tierney made unreasonable requests such as abandoning his distinctive voice to do the part in a southern accent and refusing to perform lines if he did not "get the jokes". Despite this, Oakley and Weinstein thought Tierney did a good job. Weinstein said, "He certainly delivered and he's one of my favorite characters we have had ." After Tierney's death, the episode "The Old Man and the Key" was dedicated to him.
"Marge Be Not Proud" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 17, 1995. The episode was selected for release in a 1999 video collection of selected episodes, titled: Bart Wars. Other episodes included in the collection set were "Mayored to the Mob", "Dog of Death", and "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson". The episode was again included in the 2005 DVD release of the Bart Wars set. The episode was included in The Simpsons season 7 DVD set, which was released on December 13, 2005. Oakley, Weinstein, Scully, Moore, and Silverman participated in the DVD's audio commentary.
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.”
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“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)