Jaws Wired Shut - Production

Production

The episode was written by executive producer Matt Selman and directed by Nancy Kruse. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on January 27, 2002. The episode's setpiece was pitched by Selman, and originated from a discussion he had with current showrunner Al Jean, about "how much crap there is at the movie theater before the movie actually begins." The episode's plot was also pitched by Selman, who had wanted to do an episode with a "jaws-wired-shut plot" for a while. It was not until long after the episode was completed that Selman learned that one can in fact talk with one's jaw wired shut. He learned this from fellow Simpsons writer Brian Kelley, who had had his jaw wired shut once in high school. Kelley joined the writing staff during the writing stage of the episode, however he did not mention that one could talk, since he did not want to "ruin" the episode. However, he did say that one should eat a lot before since one will lose weight when their jaw is wired shut. These trivias were subsequently included in the episode.

According to Jean, the episode's table read went "great" until the third act. The Simpsons writers found the third act "pretty challenging" to write, because by having Homer's jaws wired shut, they "took funniest character" and "remove comedy." In the DVD commentary for the episode, Selman described it as "It's the comedy of saying: 'Oh, he can't do all the stuff you want him to do'." It was also hard to "keep the story moving" back to normal, since they kept having to "re-use the premise". The episode features American comedian John Kassir as one of the dogs in the gay pride parade in the beginning of the episode. Barbara Walters and Star Jones, the hosts of The View, were portrayed by American voice-actor Tress MacNeille. In the DVD commentary for the episode, Jean stated that MacNeille is "very versatile". Lisa Ling and Joy Behar were portrayed by voice-actor Pamela Hayden.