and feels less reluctant. The pair then decide that perhaps the marriage can work after all. Homer, poorly disguised as Ganesha, tries to stop the wedding but is chased off by one of Apu's relatives. Production Writer Richard Appel pitched "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons" at a story retreat several years before the ninth season, but it could not be fitted into a season at that point. Mike Scully liked the idea and so decided to use it in his first season as showrunner. Homer's subplot at the retirement home was an idea that Scully had had for a long time. The plot could not be sustained for a whole episode, so it was fitted into this one. The bachelor auction was created solely to provide more evidence that Apu was the best bachelor in Springfield. Appel found that the scene "wrote itself", as every other man in Springfield is essentially a loser compared to Apu. The scene acted as the episode's opening set piece, a concept that Scully liked to use in every episode. The montage of Apu getting several different hair styles originally included three more, but they ended up being cut for time. The shot in which Apu's mother falls to the ground, a joke that the staff love, was inspired by an incident when Moore saw a man fall in much the same way. The joke was only inserted to buy Apu and Homer more time to come up with a lie. Homer writing "Where are the sticky buns" on a sheet of paper after Apu asks him for advice is one of Mike Scully's favorite jokes. Before the wedding, Bart fuels a "sacred fire" with pages from a hymn book. Originally, he used pages from the Bible, but after the scene had been animated, Scully found the joke "horrible" and changed the book title to "Hymns". Andrea Martin provided the voice of Apu's mother, recording her part in New York City. She wanted to get the voice perfect, so in between takes she listened to tapes of Hank Azaria reading lines for Apu, to make sure her voice could realistically be Apu's mother's. During the flashback to Apu's childhood, the animators made sure not to show Manjula, as they wished to reveal her at the end of the episode. The staff researched arranged Hindu marriages, learning about ideas such as the lotus flower being used as