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 anime 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 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, and Karl Wiedergott as both Mr. Monopoly and Woody Allen. Themes and cultural references In his book Gilligan Unbound, American literary critic Paul Cantor described how "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" references and mocks several aspects of Japanese and American culture, as well as differences between the two. The Hello Kitty factory from Sanrio