Production
The episode was written by Jennifer Crittenden. She came in to the writers' room and pitched the idea that there should be a teachers' strike in an episode. Then-show runner David Mirkin thought the episode had a lot of potential, and much of it is based on his experience as a child with schools running out of money. Despite the title of the episode, at no point does the PTA (Parent-Teacher Association) actually disband. The title was suggested by Mirkin and was intended to poke fun at Crittenden, who thought the most exciting part of the teachers going on strike would be that the PTA might disband. In addition to this, Mirkin added a character to the episode who, on thinking the PTA has disbanded, jumps panicking out of a window. He jumps back in the same window when Ned tells him the PTA has not disbanded.
The episode was directed by Swinton O. Scott III. In the opening shot of the episode, the bus that the children travel in to the field trip had to vibrate up and down to give the impression that it did not have bumpers and that it was falling apart. Scott said it was difficult to animate the scene because of the vibrating and the backgrounds panning. Milhouse's tutor in the episode is based on the American actor Tony Randall.
Read more about this topic: The PTA Disbands
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“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)
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)