with earwax, but it was removed when the animators looked over the episode's storyboard. The second segment originally had many more shots of buffalo being shot, but some were changed so that the deaths were off-camera. The singing hobo was voiced by regular cast member Hank Azaria, who voices Moe and Comic Book Guy among other characters in the series. Originally, the part would be played by Canadian-American actor and comedian Jim Carrey, who had asked for a role in an episode. Because Carrey was busy with other projects and did not have time to record any lines, the role was instead given to Azaria, who Scully said did a "great job". While most of the hobo's songs were written by Frink, the song that the hobo sings at the beginning of the episode was written by executive producer and former showrunner Mike Reiss. The dialog between Homer and the hobo at the end of the episode was ad-libbed by Azaria and Dan Castellaneta, who portrays Homer in the series. Like many other trilogy episodes, "Simpsons Tall Tales" ended up very long and the staff were obliged to cut some scenes in order to fit with the program's maximum running time. The scene in which Homer first meets Babe was also cut short; originally, it would show Babe kicking Homer in the crotch after Homer says that he will "whip [Babe] from dawn to dusk." A similar joke was later used in The Simpsons Movie. The last removed scene was from the episode's third segment. It would show Lenny and Carl eating buffalo meat, while Carl speaks like a stereotypical Native American. Cultural references "Simpsons Tall Tales" has been described as a "skewed" retelling of old tales. The beginning of the episode shows the family winning a trip to Delaware. This is a reference to the end of "Behind the Laughter", in which Homer is seen watching an episode of The Simpsons wherein the family is visiting Delaware. The first segment is based on the mythological lumberjack Paul Bunyan, who carved Babe the Blue ox out of the Blue Mountains. The second segment shows Lisa as Connie Appleseed, a female version of the American pioneer nurseryman Johnny Appleseed who introduced apple trees to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. "Tom and Huck" features Bart as Tom Sawyer and Nelson as Huckleberry Finn, both of whom are characters in Mark