Matt Groening said of the guest appearance: "We were so excited that we got Ringo Starr coming in to do the show and we recorded him over at the Complex in West Los Angeles. We were given a list of rules about what we couldn't do to Ringo, such as 'Don't touch him', 'Don't approach him', and 'Don't ask for his autograph'. But of course when he shows up in this big limo, Brian brings out a big poster and asks him to sign it!" Roberts explained that he had not received the memo with the rules so he showed up with a copy of the script cover and asked Starr to sign it. Groening asked Starr if he wanted to be animated the way he was in Yellow Submarine or the way he was in the cartoon series The Beatles. Starr chose Yellow Submarine because he did not like his appearance in the cartoon. In addition to Starr, the episode features a guest appearance by Jon Lovitz as Lombardo and the doughnut delivery man who delivers doughnuts to the nuclear power plant. Lombardo's physical appearance was based on an art teacher Reardon had in art school. Cultural references The line for the H2WHOA! ride reproduces the staircases in the lithograph Ascending and Descending by M. C. Escher. The way Krusty removes the clown make-up from his face resembles the way The Joker removes his make-up in the 1989 film Batman. When Homer announces he is going on a diet, he says: "As God is my witness, I'll always be hungry again!", a reference to the famous line "As God is my witness... I'll never be hungry again!" from the film Gone with the Wind. Homer exercises in a way similar to how Rocky exercises in the 1976 film Rocky. The music that plays as Homer approaches the scale is the main theme from the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. A copy of Andy Warhol's painting Campbell's Soup Cans is visible at the art gallery. Reception In its original broadcast, "Brush with Greatness" finished thirty-seventh in the ratings for the week of April 8–14, 1991, with a Nielsen rating of 12.0, equivalent to approximately eleven million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on Fox that week, following Married... with Children. The episode received positive reviews from television critics. Many lauded the use of Starr; for