hotel room, knowing Selma would not smell the leak. He left while she watched MacGyver, knowing she would light a cigarette afterwards and cause an explosion. Although Bart foiled the plot, Chief Wiggum absent-mindedly threw a match into the room after smoking a celebratory cigar, causing the explosion. Bob, vowing revenge on Bart, is led away by the police. As Selma blames herself for almost getting killed, Marge praises Bart for foiling Bob's plot and not losing his mistrust of him. Production "Black Widower" was written by Jon Vitti and directed by David Silverman. The staff wanted an episode involving a "mystery", so executive producer Sam Simon approached Thomas Chastain, head of the organization Mystery Writers of America, to help construct the mystery. A number of clues leading up to the revelation at the end were inserted into the script so viewers would be able to solve the mystery on their own. As the episode was being written, the writers had their eyes towards winning an Edgar Award, which is awarded by the Mystery Writers of America to the best mystery fiction in print, television and film published or produced in the past year. Despite their efforts, "Black Widower" was not nominated for an Edgar Award. In the episode, the writers echoed the premise of Wile E. Coyote by having Sideshow Bob unexpectedly insert himself into Bart's life and attempt to kill him. Executive producer Al Jean has compared Bob's character to that of Wile E. Coyote, noting that both are intelligent, yet always foiled by what they perceive as an inferior intellect. For "Black Widower", director David Silverman updated the character model of Bob to reflect the animation of director Brad Bird. One of Bob's friends from jail seen in the episode is Snake Jailbird. The character first appeared in the season two episode "The War of the Simpsons" only as "Jailbird", but his full name was first mentioned in "Black Widower". The writers gave him the name Snake because of the snake tattoo on his arm, and the character has gone by that name ever since. "Black Widower" was the second episode Kelsey Grammer guest starred in as the voice of Sideshow Bob. He had previously appeared in the season one episode "Krusty Gets Busted", in which Bart gets Bob sentenced to jail for framing Krusty for armed robbery. Grammer initially expected to voice Bob in a one-time