A Milhouse Divided Marge because the writers felt that tertiary characters could not carry an audience's interest for an entire episode. Bill Oakley has said that he felt the episode would have failed had they stuck with the Van Houtens for the third act and most of the other writers also felt that it was the right move. The idea for the dinner party came from Oakley, who had wanted to have a party similar to the one in "The War of the Simpsons". For the second half of the episode, Luann was redesigned to look more youthful and was given a new
A House Divided (Dallas) there was consensus that a mystery with several suspects was optimal and that it should be a sudden event. Capice denied rumors that the shooting was a ploy to make it easy to write Hagman out of the script if his contract negotiations became too difficult. Producer Leonard Katzman, executive story consultant Art Lewis and story editor Camille Marchetta decided the actual culprit in mid-March by process of logical elimination with the belief that the audience should not be surprised by someone who was not important to the show as the shooter. "A House Divided" served as both an introduction