Production
The episode was produced by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who had served as showrunners of seasons three and four. They returned to the show to produce this and several other episodes while under contract at Disney. The episode was written by Reid Harrison and directed by Steven Dean Moore. It had one of the longest episode gaps between its conception to the time it was finished. The idea was first conceived at a story retreat. Jean found a copy of TV Guide while in the bathroom, with The X-Files on the cover. Feeling a crossover would be a good idea, he came back into the room, told Reiss his idea, and the pair pitched it. None of the other staff wanted to do it, so Reiss and Jean decided to do it themselves. Before the episode was produced the script was sent to Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files, who said that it was an "honor" to be satirized by The Simpsons. Al Jean was worried that the episode was not funny, as at the table reading there were only a few of the writers present and as such, the script got no laughs at all. It took a long time to come up with an ending, and an explanation for the alien. Originally it was just going to be left as a mystery. Mulder and Scully's office was designed to be exactly the same as the one used in The X-Files. After it had been finished, Fox sent the episode out for a critical review, which was "really great". The scene with the "Homer is a dope" t-shirts originally had an extra line: "I told you, we're sold out!", thus filling in the plot error in the actual episode in which Homer asks for some t-shirts, despite just being told that they were sold out. The scene after Homer's first encounter with the alien, in which he runs through a field writing "Yah!" in the grass was written by David M. Stern, and added in after the original read through.
Read more about this topic: The Springfield Files
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