Production
"'Round Springfield" was written by Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia, based on a story idea by Al Jean and Mike Reiss. It was the first episode directed by Steven Dean Moore. Due to Fox's demand for 24 or 25 episodes per season, which the production staff found impossible to meet, two episodes of each season were written and produced by former showrunners, to relieve the stress on The Simpsons' writing staff. Jean and Reiss, who were showrunners for the show's third and fourth seasons returned to produce this episode, as well as "A Star Is Burns", instead of the season's main showrunner David Mirkin. On both episodes, they were aided by the staff of The Critic, the show the two left The Simpsons to create. Sternin and Ventimilia were writers on The Critic and were big fans of The Simpsons, so were thrilled to be able to write an episode.
This episode marked the first time a recurring character has been killed off on the show. The writers and production team felt that it would be a good, emotional storyline, which, through Lisa, could focus on the theme of grief. They decided that it could not be one of the main characters; Jean joked that "we wouldn't want it to be someone like Mr. Burns, that we'd obviously want to see in the show again". Eventually Jean decided on Bleeding Gums Murphy, a character introduced in the season one episode "Moaning Lisa"; a flashback to "Moaning Lisa" is featured in the episode. Murphy was a fairly minor character, only appearing in a couple of episodes, but he appeared in the show's opening sequence and remained there after this episode, until the opening was re-designed in season 20. Moore's first ever job on the show was in the animation department for "Moaning Lisa" so he "appreciated" being able to direct this episode. Reiss stated "I had been polling for years to kill Marge's mom but this was a better idea". Actor Ron Taylor returned to guest star as Murphy in the episode. Comedian Steve Allen also made his second guest appearance on the show, having previously appeared in the episode "Separate Vocations".
The main story of the episode's first act sees Bart get appendicitis from eating a jagged metal Krusty-O. Mike Reiss's father, being a doctor, "sort of" acted as the medical consultant on this episode. He stated that "you can't get" appendicitis from eating a piece of metal, but the writers decided to do it anyway. In his flashback, Murphy is shown as having a "$1,500 a day Fabergé egg habit"; Jean "didn't realize just how expensive" Fabergé eggs actually were, so the joke does not make much sense.
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“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)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I can’t see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. It’s a step backwards. You have to realize the people weren’t quite ready for a socialist production system.”
—Gus Hall (b. 1910)