Production
The script for "Homer vs. Patty and Selma" was written by Brent Forrester and was the first time he received a writing credit on The Simpsons. Executive producer David Mirkin describes it as a very grounded and emotional episode that seems very "sitcomy".
Bart's ballet teacher was voiced by Susan Sarandon, and was designed to look a little bit like her. Sarandon had wanted to guest star on the show because her children were big fans; she brought them with her to the recording session. Due to a traffic jam, she was late for the recording session, but once arrived fell into character and worked very hard on getting her accent accurate. Sarandon would later have a cameo appearance as the voice of a computer in the season 17 episode "Bart Has Two Mommies". Mel Brooks has a cameo appearance as himself, performing the 2000 Year Old Man skit with Homer, who refers to it as the "2000-pound man thing". His wife Anne Bancroft had played a role in the episode "Fear of Flying" and Brooks had accompanied her to the recording session. David Mirkin realized that Brooks was "dying to do the show" and asked him if he would be willing to do a guest part, and he agreed. Many of the writers were fans of Brooks, and Matt Groening described the chance to have him guest star as "an incredible honor."
The episode was directed by Mark Kirkland and was a fan of the characters, having previously directed the season two episode "Principal Charming", which also focuses on the duo. When directing the sequences where Bart does ballet dancing, Kirkland assigned the scenes to animators who were familiar with dancing.
Read more about this topic: Homer Vs. Patty And Selma
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)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)