Production
"Skinner's Sense of Snow" was written by Tim Long and directed by Lance Kramer. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on December 17, 2000. The idea for the episode came from Long. One winter during his childhood, Exeter, where Long lived, was hit by a blizzard. Much to his dismay, Long found out that all schools except Exeter Public School, which he went to, got closed. Eventually, Long and his classmates were snowed in with the school's staff. "It was hellish, but then became a sweet thing", he said. "A couple of the dads braved the cold and brought us food on snowmobiles. So it was sweet." Two years after Long pitched the premise, staff writer Matt Selman pitched the episodes setpiece, which revolves around the Simpsons' visit to Cirque du Purée. "I pitched to Tim when we were pitching around ideas", Selman said in the episode's DVD commentary. "And I said, 'What about a Cirque du Soleil parody?'" The staff then decided to combine the two stories, and production on "Skinner's Sense of Snow" ensued.
In order to make a faithful rendition of the circus, director Kramer asked the animators to watch a showing of Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica, but they declined the offer. Regardless, executive producer and former showrunner Mike Scully found that the animators did an "amazing" job animating the setpiece. Because the episode takes place in winter, the animators faced some challenges that they would not have with any other episode. "It just adds another element", Kramer said about episodes taking place in winter, "People's clothes have to get tugged in the wind if it's windy. And you have to make sure the snow is consistent because It's like a character. If it's a big snowflake in one scene and then tiny ones where it's snowing too hard in the next scene... It's not gonna work." The scratches and bad quality of "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, But Then Was" were added in by the Post-Production Department, led by Alex Duke. "Our Post-Production Department never gets enough credit," Scully said, "But they'll take a film like and make it all scratchy and make it look really old. They always do a great job." The woman in "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, But Then Was" was portrayed by Tress MacNeille, while the clown in the Cirque du Purée was voiced by Hank Azaria. The song that plays when Homer and Ned are driving to the school is "Feel Like Makin' Love" by English rock band Bad Company. Originally, the series' staff wanted to use "Rock and Roll All Nite" by American rock band Kiss, but they failed to obtain the rights to use it.
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