Lisa's Pony - Production

Production

"Lisa's Pony" was written by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who were show runners of The Simpsons when the episode was produced. According to Reiss, being a show runner is a stressful job as he has to supervise all the processes the episodes go through. Jean and Reiss were working approximately 80–100 hours a week when they were assigned to write an episode on top of their regular job. "Lisa's Pony" was written between 10.00 p.m. and 1.00 a.m. every night after they had finished their 12–14 hour workday. They came up with idea for it while going through a list of Lisa's interests, and Jean told Reiss, "Lisa likes ponies; we give her a pony." While writing down ideas for the story, they decided to explore the consequences of having a pony in a suburban house.

Carlos Baeza served as animation director for the episode. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said animating horses is "the most difficult thing to do." The animators used Eadweard Muybridge's famous animation of a horse galloping and other photo references as models for Princess. In the talent show scene, Lisa is lit up by a spotlight when she performs with her saxophone. After the episode came back from the animation studio in Korea, the staff noticed that the light was colored blue, making Lisa look like "a Smurf." The scene had to be re-animated in the United States, and the spotlight effect was reduced.

The woman who sells the pony to Homer is based on actress Katharine Hepburn. Cast member Tress MacNeille provided the voice for the character. Lunchlady Doris, a recurring character on The Simpsons, made her first appearance on the show in this episode as one of the judges in the talent show. She was voiced by the show's script supervisor Doris Grau, who had a "beautiful, tobacco-cured voice" the staff thought was perfect for the role. Following Grau's death in 1995, the characters she voiced were retired out of respect, with the exception of Lunchlady Doris who stayed on the show without speaking roles.