to meet, two episodes of each season were written and produced by former showrunners, to relieve the stress on The Simpsons writing staff. Jean and Reiss, who were showrunners for the show's third and fourth seasons, returned to produce the episode, as well as "A Star Is Burns", instead of the season's main showrunner David Mirkin. On both episodes, they were aided by the staff of The Critic, the show the two left The Simpsons to create. Sternin and Ventimilia were writers on The Critic and were big fans of The Simpsons, so were thrilled to be able to write an episode. The episode marked the first time a recurring character has been killed off on the show. The writers and production team felt that it would be a good, emotional storyline, which, through Lisa, could focus on the theme of grief. They decided that it could not be one of the main characters; Jean joked that "we wouldn't want it to be someone like Mr. Burns, that we'd obviously want to see in the show again". Eventually, Jean decided on Bleeding Gums Murphy, a character introduced in the season one episode "Moaning Lisa"; a flashback to "Moaning Lisa" is featured in the episode. Murphy was a fairly minor character, only appearing in a couple of episodes, but he appeared in the show's opening sequence and remained there after the episode, until the opening was re-designed in season 20. Moore's first ever job on the show was in the animation department for "Moaning Lisa" so he "appreciated" being able to direct the episode. Reiss stated, "I had been polling for years to kill Marge's mom but this was a better idea". Actor Ron Taylor returned to guest star as Murphy in the episode. Comedian Steve Allen also made his second guest appearance on the show, having previously appeared in the episode "Separate Vocations". The main story of the episode's first act sees Bart get appendicitis from eating a jagged metal Krusty-O. Mike Reiss's father, being a doctor, "sort of" acted as the medical consultant on the episode. He stated that it is impossible to get appendicitis from eating a piece of metal, but the writers decided to do it anyway. In his flashback, Murphy is shown as having a "$1,500 a day Fabergé egg habit". Al Jean "didn't realize just how expensive" Fabergé eggs actually were (in 2013, a collector