Production
"Tales from the Public Domain" was directed by Mike B. Anderson and written by Andrew Kreisberg, Josh Lieb and Matt Warburton. It originally aired on March 17, 2002 on the Fox network. "Tales from the Public Domain" is the third trilogy episode produced for the series, the other two being "Simpsons Bible Stories" from season 10, and "Simpsons Tall Tales" from season 12. Al Jean, the show runner for the episode, stated that trilogy episodes are "very fun for the writers" to do because it allows them to parody "great works of literature" and condense them into one act each.
Before writing the episode, the writers had decided that one of the segments would feature Lisa as the main character. According to Jean, the writers found it very difficult to find a historical story for Lisa because there are "so few that star women". They had the same problem when pitching stories for "Simpsons Tall Tales", in which they resorted to giving Lisa the role of "Connie Appleseed", a feminization of the historical figure Johnny Appleseed. The writers eventually settled on Saint Joan of Arc. According to the episode's supervising producer Don Payne, Scottish actor David Tennant watched "Do the Bard, Man" along with the cast of Hamlet during their first rehearsal. The segment has also been used in schools to teach students about Shakespeare’s literary work.
In the DVD audio commentary for the episode, Anderson stated that trilogy episodes, like the Treehouse of Horror episodes, are "much harder" to direct than normal ones because the animators have to make as many designs for each act as they would for one normal episode. In the scene in which Joan gets torched by the British, Jean specifically ordered Anderson to "make sure she doesn't get burned," even though she was surrounded by flames. Jean explained in the commentary that, when Mike Scully was show runner for The Simpsons, Jean learned that "people do not wanna see changes in basic design" when the character gets hurt. He added that, because the viewer is "so attached to the characters, don't wanna see... especially Lisa, get hurt in any way." In order to make Homer's ghost in the third segment transparent, the animators had to "double expose" him; Homer's cels were first shot normally and then with a diminished opacity. In the first segment, clouds can be seen moving behind Zeus. The clouds were animated by airbrushing the cels and then moving them slowly in order to make it "look heavenly."
Read more about this topic: Tales From The Public Domain
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