Trivia / The Simpsons S7 E18 "The Day the Violence Died"

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: Lionel Hutz asking the Meyers legal team if they have a copy of Manhattan Mouse sounds like he's being an idiot and begging his opponents to help him out. However, this is a real legal concept; as part of the rules of civil discovery, one can indeed request evidence from their opponent if it's likely to help one's case, and the opponent ignoring or refusing to comply with those requests can result in fines and penalties. Really, the only part of it that's wrong is that Hutz is asking in the middle of the trial, rather than in the evidence-gathering phase.
• Blooper: The final shot is Bart looking out of the living room window, which faces the rear of the house, to see Lester skateboarding slowly in front of the house, a perspective that should be impossible.
• Creator Backlash: Bill Oakley described the scene where Bart asks Homer for a large sum of money and Homer immediately pulls out his wallet as "very controversial" among the staff, with Matt Groening specifically disliking it.
• Edited for Syndication: Most over air repeats (aside from FXX on occasion) skip over the part where Roger Meyers Jr reveals he has to keep his father's frozen head in a cheap styrofoam cooler (parodying the legend that Walt Disney had his own head cryogenically frozen after his death). Ditto the short scene where Homer walks past the basement, hears Chester ask for change, and casually throws some money down the stairs.
• The Original Darrin: Alex Rocco, who voiced Roger Meyers, Jr. in "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge", returns after being voiced by Hank Azaria in "The Front" and "Itchy and Scratchy Land".
• Wag the Director: According to Nancy Cartwright, Kirk Douglas' recording session was fraught with interruptions. He refused to wear the earphones supplied to him in the recording studio, saying they hurt his ears, so he was unable to hear Josh Weinstein from his booth. Cartwright directed Douglas, who was in a hurry and said that he would do two takes per line at the most. However, despite reading his lines all at once, he only had trouble with one scene; the scene in which Lampwick tells Bart he created Itchy & Scratchy required three takes, as Douglas continuously misread the line "I changed all that" as "I charged all that". Cartwright managed to get him to do a third reading of the line by pretending to sneeze during his second take.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the original script, the cartoon Lisa and Bart watched after Itchy & Scratchy is cancelled was a Self-Parody of The Simpsons itself, but the producers felt that it was not funny. As a result, it was replaced by the "Amendment to Be" cartoon, which is a parody of the "I'm Just a Bill" segment of the educational television series Schoolhouse Rock!. Worried about potential lawsuits, the lawyer of The Simpsons made the animators change the design of the senator and the young boy in the segment — ironically, the latter instead ended up looking like Dennis the Menace, though the copyright holders of that franchise apparently either didn't notice the similarity, or didn't care enough to do anything about it.
  • William Hickey was the producers' first choice for the role of Chester. Oakley and Weinstein felt that Hickey's gruff raspy voice would be perfect for the role, but he turned them down.
  • It was initially uncertain whether or not Jack Sheldon would be available to perform the "Amendment to Be" song — either due to scheduling difficulties or Sheldon being unwell, depending on the source — and he wasn't confirmed until the eleventh hour. Had Sheldon been unavailable, then the song would have been performed by Phil Hartman, who had already been booked to play Lionel Hutz in the episode.

---