Radio Bart - Production

Production

"Radio Bart" was written by Jon Vitti and directed by Carlos Baeza, though series creator Matt Groening came up with the idea for it. The episode was based on the 1951 film Ace in the Hole, which sees the story of a former journalist exploiting a story about a man trapped in a cave to re-jump start his career. Vitti did not watch the film until after the episode had been written; " came in out of nowhere and just gave me, start to finish, the whole story." Vitti said renting the film was the first thing he did after finishing the script. He remarked, "It's surprisingly hard to rent. It's really dark and funny and it's by Billy Wilder, so you think it would be in stores, but it's not. It was hard to find."

The producers approached singer Bruce Springsteen to appear in the episode because he had participated to the charity song "We Are the World", on which "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" is based. Springsteen declined so the producers offered the role to British musician Sting instead. Executive producer Al Jean said Sting is one of his favorite guest stars that have appeared on the show and he "couldn't have been better. He was really funny." The Simpsons director David Silverman said Sting's appearance in the episode worked for his persona because he has campaigned for political and social causes in real life. Sting was staying in New York City at the time of the episode's recording so Vitti flew there to record the lines with him.

The television commercial for the Superstar Celebrity Microphone that Homer watches was inspired by a popular Ronco Mr. Microphone commercial from the late 1970s, in which a boy becomes popular and "scores with the girls" by using his microphone to be on the radio. Both commercials feature a boy riding by in a car full of friends saying, "Hey, good-looking, we'll be back to pick you up later," a line the staff thought was "hilarious". In the Superstar Celebrity Microphone commercial, the boy sings the 1975 song "Convoy" by C. W. McCall into the microphone. The producers originally wanted him to sing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot, a song about the sinking of the bulk carrier S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior. Vitti said the reason the song was not used was because Lightfoot had made it so that in order to clear the copyrights for song, they would have to get permission from the families of the twenty-nine crewmen who died on the ship. In another scene, Bart uses his radio to make Homer believe aliens are invading Earth; Homer was originally supposed to create a punch made from Kool-Aid and rat poison so that he and the family could commit suicide before the aliens arrived. The writers thought this scene was "too dark" and changed it to Homer getting a shotgun and going after the aliens, before finding out that Bart is playing a trick on him.