Al Jean and Mike Reiss made a deal with Disney to make four episodes of "The Simpsons". Jean and Reiss thought of the episode's story years before it was made. They talked about the idea with other writers but no one wanted to make an episode with the story. When they were able to make episodes again, they wrote the dialogue of the episode. Reiss first did not like the episode. He thought that the story was foolish and had too much magic in it. He now thinks that it is one of the best episodes he wrote. When it was made, the episode had more music than any other episode. Jean thought that the songs would make the episode as long as it needed to be. However, it was still shorter than regular episodes. Many parts of the episode were added to make it longer. For example, an "Itchy &amp; Scratchy" cartoon was put in the episode. There was going to be a song where Bart, Lisa and Shary go to Patty and Selma and sing about smoking. The song was not put in the episode because producers did not think it was funny. The song was put in the album "Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons". Some animation of the song was shown in the 8th season's DVD as a deleted scene. Eric Stefani made the animation for some of the episode's songs.