"Un-American Graffiti" is the first episode of "Veronica Mars" not to be part of a broader story arc in the form of a mystery that Veronica solves over several episodes. The crew's plan at the beginning of the season was to have the two-part murder mystery of Hearst's basketball coach, encapsulated in "Postgame Mortem" and "Mars, Bars", to stretch over the rest of the season beginning with this episode, but this idea was changed around the airing of "Spit & Eggs". Series creator Rob Thomas gave two rationales for the creative change. The first was that he believed that the story arcs alienated new or casual viewers, meaning that the change would solve the series' low Nielsen ratings, while the other reason was that he noticed that after the first season, the show had garnered the most narrative criticism about the story arcs. On trying the new narrative structure, Thomas stated, "It seems like a good time to do it—a good fun test balloon. Try it over five and see how fans and non-fans react." However, Thomas also commented that the show would continue to exhibit a degree of serialization through Veronica's romantic and personal life. In addition, the new story formula was a way to have episodes focus on Veronica's personal life instead of devoting most of the episode time to advancing rushed mysteries.