Production
When the episode was being written, many writers' contracts had just expired, so there was a small number of writers at the annual story retreat. Al Jean was very nervous about how they could write a whole new season with such a small crew. In addition, there were several scenes added after the animatic, making the schedule even tighter. However, Jon Vitti was very committed to this episode and pitched almost the entire plot by himself. Vitti's inspiration for the episode was when he noticed that very few TV shows portray snow outside of Thanksgiving or Christmas, so he wanted to do an episode with snow involved. From this idea he developed the "friends in competition with each other" plot, which led to Homer getting the plow from a car show. From this came Vitti's plan; have Adam West be at the car show, so then they could hire him for the voice acting and Vitti could finally meet Adam West. The other writers agreed because they were all big fans of Batman when they were children and wanted to meet Adam West. Matt Groening said that West was one of the most popular people to ever come to the studio. Linda Ronstadt was recorded in San Francisco. Jon Vitti was tasked with recording Linda and he enjoyed it immensely. He still thinks that the most beautiful thing he has ever heard is Linda Ronstadt singing the Spanish Plow King jingle.
Two more script changes that put extra pressure on the episode were a post-animatic rewrite and a complete character change. In the original script for the episode Lenny was going to be Homer’s rival as the Plow King. The idea was quickly dropped because it did not seem to fit in. The post-animatic rewrite was to include the joke in which Homer uses the radio dial to tip the precariously balanced plow back onto the road. This joke was created by Conan O'Brien, and the writers liked it so much that they included it in the episode.
The Simpsons team encountered trouble with the network censors in the scene where Homer answers the phone and pretends to be Tony Dow from Leave it to Beaver. After a brief pause Homer replies to an inquiry by the person on the phone with "Yeah, they were gay." The censors refused to allow the line to be aired fearing legal recourse for libel. The Simpsons crew protested, arguing that no one in particular was being implied, and that the "they" could be anybody. After numerous phone calls and arguments, the censors allowed the joke to air.
Read more about this topic: Mr. Plow
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