Production
The episode was written by George Meyer and directed by Jeffrey Lynch. Mike Reiss, show runner of The Simpsons with Al Jean at the time, said Meyer wrote most of the episode by himself without help from the show's other writers. Few changes were made to the first draft that he pitched to the producers. It was near identical to the final script. The episode was inspired by the vocational tests taken by several members of the show's staff when they went to school; Reiss, for example, said he was told he would become a librarian. Jean said "one of the first things that sold us on doing the episode" was the idea of Bart becoming a policeman. He said it was "a funny, realistic depiction of what a kid like Bart might wind up to become, and it wasn't something you would immediately think of." Jean said the episode deals with the emotion that many adults feel when they grow older and realize that they are not going to achieve the dreams they once had. " how people in life cope with that problem. Maybe Lisa, at eight years old, is a little bit young to worry about that, but that's what we were trying to explore here."
In one sequence where Bart imagines himself testifying in court, his voice has been censored and electronically altered. The altered voice was provided by American actor and television personalty Steve Allen. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said the older writers were "thrilled" to have Allen appear on the show, John Swartzwelder in particular. It took nine takes for Allen to pronounce Bart's catchphrase "¡Ay, caramba!" correctly. There was a discussion amongst the staff of whether the episode should end with a joke or have a "sweet" ending. Reiss said "With the better angels in our nature, we went with the sweet ending ."
Read more about this topic: Separate Vocations
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)