 The episode was written by Jonathan Collier and directed by Mike B. Anderson . It was Anderson 's first directing role . The story was inspired by the 1991 exhumation of President Zachary Taylor . Donald Sutherland guest starred as the voice of Hollis Hurlbut , a part that was written specifically for him . The episode includes several references to Colonial and Revolutionary America , including Gilbert Stuart 's unfinished 1796 painting of George Washington . The episode features two neologisms , embiggen and cromulent , which were intended to sound like real words but are in fact completely fabricated ( although it was later discovered that C. A. Ward had used " embiggen " in 1884 ) . Embiggen , coined by Dan Greaney , has since been used in several scientific publications , while cromulent , coined by David X. Cohen , appeared in the Dictionary.com 's 21st Century Lexicon . 
