Production
David Mirkin served as showrunner and executive producer for season six, having worked in the same capacity on the previous season. Due to Fox's demand for 25 episodes for the season, which the writers felt was impossible to achieve, former showrunners Mike Reiss and Al Jean returned to produce two episodes ("A Star Is Burns" and "'Round Springfield") with the staff of their show The Critic, to relieve some of the stress on The Simpsons' writing staff.
David Cohen, Jonathan Collier, Jennifer Crittenden, Brent Forrester, Ken Keeler, Bob Kushell, David Sacks, Mike Scully, Joshua Sternin, and Jeffrey Ventimilia all received their first writing credits during season six. Steven Dean Moore and Swinton O. Scott III received their first directing credit. Other credited writers included Greg Daniels, Dan McGrath, Bill Oakley, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti and Josh Weinstein. Other directors included Bob Anderson, Wes Archer, Susie Dietter, Mark Kirkland, Jeffrey Lynch, Jim Reardon and David Silverman.
The main cast consisted of Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, among others), Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson, Patty and Selma Bouvier), Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson, Ralph Wiggum, Nelson Muntz, among others), Yeardley Smith (Lisa Simpson), Hank Azaria (Moe Szyslak, Apu, Chief Wiggum, among others) and Harry Shearer (Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, among others). Other cast members included Doris Grau (Lunchlady Doris), Pamela Hayden (Milhouse Van Houten, among others), Tress MacNeille (Agnes Skinner, among others), Maggie Roswell (Maude Flanders, among others), Russi Taylor (Martin Prince, among others) and Marcia Wallace (Edna Krabappel). Guest stars included Anne Bancroft, Mel Brooks, Kelsey Grammer, Phil Hartman, Larry King, Susan Sarandon, Patrick Stewart, Meryl Streep and Winona Ryder.
The season's first two episodes, "Bart of Darkness" and "Lisa's Rival", were held over from the previous season, as production was delayed because of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. "A Star Is Burns" caused some controversy amongst the staff with series creator Matt Groening removing his name from the episode's credits as he saw it as blatant advertising for The Critic, which was airing at the time. The season finale "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" (which aired in two parts, the second acting as the following season's premiere) came from Groening, who had wanted to do an episode in which Mr. Burns was shot, which could be used as a publicity stunt. The writers decided to write the episode in two parts with a mystery that could be used in a contest. It was important for them to design a mystery that had clues, took advantage of freeze frame technology, and was structured around one character who seemed the obvious culprit.
Read more about this topic: The Simpsons (season 6)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“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)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“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)