Trivia / The Simpsons S6 E18: "A Star Is Burns"

• Creator Backlash: Matt Groening, who didn’t want to use The Simpsons as a way to promote The Critic (calling this episode an attempt for that show to get attention due to being unsuccessful), had his name taken off the credits and refused to participate in the DVD commentary for this crossover episode. This didn’t apply to all crossovers, because he had no issue with the Simpsons crossing over with The X-Files, American Idol, Futurama, Family Guy, or 24, as well as a brief King of the Hill cameo. This does not include the faux-crossover (meaning names were changed and a connection to the original series is less explicit) for Portlandia and Orange Is the New Black. Matt's eased up in years since then and did say the episode itself was pretty funny.
• Deleted Scene:
  • A cut scene on the season six DVD shows the elderly members of the Springfield Retirement Home doing a porno film called What The Poolboy Saw.
  • Another cut scene showed the Devil from The Critic who's also auditioning for the part of Mr. Burns, who thought he's perfect and made him his understudy.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • As described in John Ortved's book, there was an incident when showrunner David Mirkin and writer Bob Kushell got into an argument about the episode, saying it hurt the integrity of the series. Mirkin replied, "That's why you're an asshole." Stunned, Kushell proceeded to chew out Mirkin in front of the writers present and stormed out. He was convinced he was going to be fired for it, and although he wasn't, he wasn't given any writing assignments either. Kushell also mentioned that many writers came up to him privately and thanked him for standing up to Mirkin.
  • There was a well-publicised feud between Matt Groening and James L. Brooks over the episode. Groening saw it as a shameless commercial for The Critic and took his own name out of the credits, in part because he didn't want people associating The Critic with him. Brooks, in response, stated that he is "furious with Matt, he's been going to everybody who wears a suit at Fox and complaining about this," and "his (Groening's) behavior right now is rotten."
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Since The Critic didn't get exported to that many countries (and wasn't promoted much in the ones it did get to), outside of the U.S., most viewers tended to assume that Jay Sherman was either a character created specifically for this episode, or a real-life film critic.
• Non-Singing Voice: Jay Sherman's burp is provided by Maurice LaMarche, using the same burping sounds for Wakko Warner. LaMarche also burped for an offscreen Eudora Welty.
  Krusty: Coming, Eudora!
• Reality Subtext: Numerous references are made in the episode about shilling Jay Sherman and his show while he was in town. This episode had a tumultuous production because of behind-the-scenes arguments over doing the crossover. It couldn't be more obvious when Bart is watching TV and The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones is announced with Bart calling it a cheap cartoon crossover, Homer then introduces Jay Sherman and Bart says he thinks every kid should watch his show, immediately cringing saying he felt dirty saying it.
• Throw It In!: An unusual variant. During the table read, Harry Shearer was unavailable so Dan Castellaneta played Rainier Wolfcastle. Castellanetta ad libbed the line, "On closer inspection, these are loafers," which was then thrown into the script when Shearer recorded the line.
• Uncredited Role: Matt Groening, despising this episode (and going as far as to criticizing James L. Brooks, claiming that this was just a thirty-minute long advertisement for one of his unsuccessful shows), had his name removed from the credits of this episode entirely.
• What Could Have Been: The episode was originally going to end with Mr. Burns' second attempt at a film festival being more successful, turning the "Boo-urns" bit into a Brick Joke.

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