Production
The episode was written by Jeff Martin and directed by Wes Archer. Characters making their first appearance on the show in the episode are Comic Book Guy, Mrs. Glick, Radioactive Man, Fallout Boy, and Bartman. Although many suggestions state that Comic Book Guy was inspired by the show's creator Matt Groening, Comic Book Guy was partly inspired by a clerk at the Los Angeles Amok book shop who, according to Simpsons writer George Meyer, often " on the high stool, kind of lording over the store with that supercilious attitude and eating behind the counter a big Styrofoam container full of fried clams with a lot of tartar sauce." Matt Groening noted: "I can't tell you how many times people have come up to me and said, 'I know who you based that comic book guy on. It's that comic-book guy right down the block.' And I have to tell them, 'No, it's every comic-bookstore guy in America.'" Cast member Hank Azaria based Comic Book Guy's voice on a student who went by the name "F" and lived in the room next door at his college. Mrs. Glick was based on an old lady Martin and his brother used to do chores for when they were younger. Martin said they got to "pull weeds until hands would bleed", and yet they were only paid two quarters for several hours of work. American actress Cloris Leachman provided the voice of Mrs. Glick in the episode.
The episode features a The Wonder Years parody, in which Bart stares into the distance after realizing that he has to get his first job, and an older version of Bart's voice is heard saying "I didn't realize it at the time, but a little piece of my childhood had slipped away for ever that day." Daniel Stern guest starred as the voice of the adult Bart, just like he did for the adult voice of the character Kevin in the television show The Wonder Years. According to Simpsons writer Mike Reiss, Stern was a "pleasure" to work with and it only took him a few minutes to record his lines. Stern's brother David M. Stern worked as a writer on both The Simpsons and The Wonder Years, so he helped the writers get the idioms and the wording of the parody right.
Read more about this topic: Three Men And A Comic Book
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“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)
“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)