month later, Mulder visits Eddie in prison. Eddie complains at being given muscle relaxants to prevent him from turning into someone else, asking if that was Mulder's doing. Eddie then tells Mulder that he was born a loser, but Mulder is one by choice and that he should seriously "live a little". Production "Small Potatoes" was written by Vince Gilligan, who prior to working on The X-Files had worked on the script for a number of comedy movies. When devising this episode, Gilligan thus decided to return to his roots and write a humorous episode. Gilligan's rationale was two-fold: First, he did not want to become known for only writing dark episodes. Second, he wanted to "lighten up" the rather bleak fourth season, which had featured a number of grim episodes and also introduced a story-arc in which Scully develops cancer. After getting approval from series creator Chris Carter, Gilligan asked former series writer Darin Morgan—who had penned four episodes in the second and third seasons—to play Eddie Van Blundht. In fact, the role was written specifically with Morgan in mind, as Gilligan had seen and was impressed by Morgan's acting in a student film he had made while a student at Loyola Marymount University. In the original script, the babies were born with wings instead of tails. While research revealed that such a mutation was theoretically possible, the wings were changed to tails in the final version of the script because the wings were not considered cute enough. Gilligan also felt that "tails were just funnier" and that the wings would be harder to add in post-production. The tails were created with computer-generated imagery (CGI) technology, with a green mark painted on the babies' backs serving as a reference for the animators. The cast and the crew of the show thoroughly enjoyed the episode. David Duchovny was pleased with the script, describing it as a "great" episode that was fun to film. Gilligan complimented both Duchovny for his comedic performance and Gillian Anderson for acting as the "straight woman" in the episode. Reception "Small Potatoes" was originally broadcast in the United States on the Fox network on April 20, 1997, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on February 4, 1998. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 13.0, with a 20 share, meaning that roughly 13.0 percent of all television-equipped households, and 20 percent