Production
"Sweets and Sour Marge" was written by Carolyn Omine and directed by Mark Kirkland. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 20, 2002. The idea for the episode was pitched by Omine, who based it on a lawsuit at the time, wherein smokers sued tobacco companies for selling harmful wares. Omine found it "kinda weird" that the people did not take responsibility for their own health, and argued that, in the future, people might sue food companies for "making them fat", which eventually became the episode's plot. While making the episode, the Simpsons writers decided to compile a list of Springfield's fat residents. According to Omine, the list "never ended", and when the writers realized the amount of fat people there were in Springfield, they decided that the residents should try and "go for the world record" in the "fattest people" category. The writers then decided that the residents were trying to set the world record for largest human pyramid, and then accidentally set the record for fattest population. The episode features the first appearance of Cletus' cousin Dia-Betty. The character was animated by Kirkland's assistant Matt Faughnan, who has since become a regular director for the series. Garth Motherloving, the head of the "Motherloving Sweets and Sugar Company", was portrayed by American actor and comedian Ben Stiller.
At one point in the episode, the Springfield residents try to set the record for largest human pyramid, which fails when the pyramid collapses, causing the people to roll into a giant ball. According to director Kirkland, the scene, which the staff members refer to as the "people ball", was very difficult to animate, and it "almost gave a migraine" determining how to implement it in the episode. While trying to figure out how to animate the "people ball", Kirkland spray-painted a globe with white primer and assigned layout artist Paul Wee to draw the Springfield citizens on it with black ink. Normally, the Simpsons animators each draw ten scenes per week, but because he drew the "people ball", Wee was excused from these duties. Since drawing the "people ball" by hand would have "murdered" the animators, they soon decided to photograph it for each frame of the scene. The photographs were taken in Kirkland's garage and were then photocopied using a Xerox photocopier. Executive producer and current showrunner Al Jean stated that the technique for animating the "people ball" was "extremely interesting", although it has never been used again in the series. The "master drawing" of the human pyramid, which Kirkland also stated was very complicated, took animator Matthew Schofield a couple of days to draw. The drawing then became a reference for the other animators to use when animating the scene.
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