The Tennis Court Oath (David) – pre-Romantic, near-unanimous, almost totally middle-class and with no popular violence – above all was considered the forerunner of the 1789 revolution and also showed that national sovereignty was made up of each individual's personal will. David's painting also portrays the monk Dom Gerle alongside the Protestant pastor Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne, symbolising a new era of religious tolerance. The wind blowing through the windows and billowing the curtains also symbolises the wind of Revolution blowing through France. The first engravings showing "The Tennis Court Oath" only appeared in 1790, the year David convinced the Jacobin Club to launch a national
Tennis the Menace said that while he thinks these type of openings "are kind of funny", they may be best avoided. However, Scully liked the fact that the staff included a comment in the episode on its "screw you" beginning by having Homer say "I'll bet you didn't see that coming!" to the viewers when he decides to get the tennis court. The writers had a number of alternate endings to "Tennis the Menace" before deciding on the one eventually used. For instance, at one point, the family was to return home to watch the match in which Serena and Sampras faced off