witnesses a father and son build a sandcastle and laments his relationship with his own father and children. Homer decides to rectify his mistake and takes off for the hospital. Homer arrives in time, reconciling with Grampa and apologizing, but panics and flees again at the last minute. His mad dash from the hospital is stopped by an oncoming car carrier. While the driver, Hans Moleman, hits the brakes in time, one of its cars slides off and lands on Homer. Homer wakes up in a hospital bed and is greeted by Dr. Hibbert, Marge and the children. When Grampa appears in the doorway alive and well, Homer discovers that while he was unconscious, the doctors took out one of his kidneys. Homer is angry at first, but settles down after his family tells him he did the right thing for Grampa. They engage in a group hug, and Homer proceeds to give Bart's lower back (where the kidney is located) a long pat, considering him as a potential donor for himself, in which Bart realizes of what his father is thinking. Production "Homer Simpson in: 'Kidney Trouble was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Mike B. Anderson. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 6, 1998. Although it was written by Swartzwelder, the idea for the episode was pitched by former staff writer George Meyer. Nevertheless, the episode still contains several "classic Swartzwelder moments" according to executive producer Ian Maxtone-Graham, including Homer escaping on a handcart and the line "this is everybody's fault but mine". Because the episode contained several scenes of the Simpsons driving, the animators "orchestrated" the scenes by using several different backgrounds. At one point in the episode's setpiece, an arranged gunfight is seen. In the gunfight, there would originally be a man saying "Look, up on the roof, it's a prostitute" and shoot her. Although he thought the gag was funny, Mike Scully, an executive producer and the showrunner for the episode, cut it because the word "prostitute" had already been uttered "at least a dozen times in the episode". According to Scully, the Fox censors objected to showing Grampa giving Homer NyQuil in order to sleep. Scully compromised it by not showing the NyQuil label in the episode. The music that plays during the establishing shot of Springfield Hospital is based on the theme music from Ben