 " Two Dozen and One Greyhounds " was written by Mike Scully and directed by Bob Anderson . The Simpsons writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss came up with the original idea for the episode . The idea came to them after watching the 1961 Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians . David Mirkin , the episode 's show runner , later jokingly said that Jean and Reiss liked to steal ideas from Disney , and pointed to an episode in season eight that they wrote as proof , titled " Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala ( Annoyed Grunt ) cious " , which was based on the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins . Mirkin thought that it was great that they could take stuff from Disney and do darker versions on The Simpsons " in a completely legal way " . 
