Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo - Production

Production

"Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" was directed by Jim Reardon and written by Donick Cary and Dan Greaney. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on May 16, 1999. "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" was one of the last episodes produced for the series' tenth season. Staff writers Cary and Greaney wrote the draft in a couple of days, and it was then rewritten "extensively" with The Simpsons' writing staff. Originally, there would be a long scene about how Homer had bought a "pre-Colombian vase" on the internet, however the scene was ultimately cut from the episode. The episode's title is a reference to the 1944 war film 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. Originally, the staff wanted the title to be "Twenty-two Minutes Over Tokyo," since an episode of The Simpsons is approximately twenty-two minutes long, but they eventually changed it to its current rendition because it “sounds closer to” the title of the film it references. According to Cary, the writers did a lot of research in order to accurately depict the Japanese language for the episode. For example, the three categories in The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show are written in Japanese.

In the scene at the seminar, a character closely resembling the mascot of Hasbro's Monopoly can be seen sitting next to Mr. Burns. Because the design is slightly different from the real-life mascot, the Simpsons staff did not have to pay Hasbro for using their character in the episode. The design of Homer in a Jamaican attire was very popular among the staff, and Mike Scully, the showrunner for the episode, called the design "great." A scene in the episode shows Homer buying a square watermelon, which turns out to be round and slips out of his hands. In the background, cars are driving on the left side of the street. Originally, the animators had drawn the cars driving on the right side. However, Tomi Yamaguchi, a Simpsons layout artist at the time, pointed out that cars in fact drive on the left side of the street in Japan. Because of this, the animators had to redraw the whole scene, and Yamaguchi received a technical advisor credit for the episode. The speech that Homer gives to the audience in The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show was originally much longer, and would partially involve kitchenettes from Broyhill. The design of the male Canadian in the game show was based on Canadian Simpsons director Neil Affleck.

The cartoon version of The Simpsons' theme song that plays at the end of the episode was conceived by composer Alf Clausen. Chuck Garabedian, the speaker at the seminar, was portrayed by series regular voice actor Hank Azaria, who plays Moe Szyslak among other characters. The Japanese waiter in Americatown was played by American actor Gedde Watanabe. Wink, the host for the The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show, was portrayed by George Takei. Takei has appeared on The Simpsons several times before, and he is, according to Scully, one of the staff's favorite guest-stars. The episode also features the voices of Tress MacNeille, Denice Kumagai as Japanese mother, Karen Maruyama as Japanese stewardess, Keone Young as the sumo wrestler, Karl Wiedergott as Mr. Monopoly and Woody Allen.