This episode was the first to have a recurring character 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 sadness. 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". But later Jean decided on Bleeding Gums Murphy, a character introduced in "Moaning Lisa", an episode of season 1; a flashback to "Moaning Lisa" is featured in the episode.