Trivia / The Simpsons S5 E18 "Burns' Heir"

• Defictionalization: The executives at THX loved the Deep Note parody so much, they made it into an actual trailer for a time before films in THX-certified theaters.
  Grampa: Turn it up! Turn it up!
• Deleted Scene: Mr. Burns casually locking Homer out of the mansion after Homer dares Burns to do his worst was originally supposed to be the infamous sequence where Burns sics a robot replica of flamboyant fitness guru Richard Simmons on Homer, only for it to malfunction and explode after Smithers shoots it in the eye. If you look closely at the beginning of the scene where it was supposed to happen, you can even see the door in the wall, which disappears at the end of the scene. The writers have claimed that this sequence wasn't all that funny to them, and it performed poorly with test audiences, but became a smash during college lectures and animation conventions, with people literally crying with laughter at it. As a result, the scene was included in the season seven Clip Show episode "The Simpsons' 138th Episode Spectacular".
• Fake Brit: Dan Castellaneta voices a Michael Caine lookalike, who manages to do a convincing American accent while trying to imitate Homer, even if he can't quite get Homer's voice right.
• Focus Group Ending: There was originally a scene where Homer, after trying to convince Bart to come home, is driven away from Burns' mansion by a "Robotic Richard Simmons" that plays KC and the Sunshine Band's "Shake Your Booty" (Simmons was "dying to do the show", but declined when he found out he'd be voicing a robot). It was cut because it often didn't get good reactions at table reads, and it was felt to be "well trod territory" and distracted from the story (there were disagreements as to whether they should joke about Simmons). To their surprise, the scene caused audiences at conventions and colleges to erupt with laughter, so they put in the "138th Episode Spectacular" and Season 5 DVD.
  Smithers: His ass is gonna blow!!
• What Could Have Been:
  • David Silverman was supposed to direct, but he was so swamped with his work as a supervising director (effectively the animation department's equivalent of a showrunner) that it was reassigned to Mark Kirkland.
  • Michael Caine was supposed to voice the actor playing Homer (during the part where Mr. Burns shows Bart a video of The Simpsons saying they don't want him back, but it turns out it's a bunch of actors who were roped into the role), but he turned it down, so Homer's own voice actor Dan Castellaneta voiced him instead.
  • For the aforementioned Deleted Scene, Richard Simmons was supposed to voice his robotic counterpart, but turned it down because he didn't want to voice himself as a robot. Dan Castellaneta was brought in as his replacement.

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