Voice actress Marcia Mitzman Gaven was hired to fill in for Roswell's characters, including Maude in this episode and the earlier episodes of the eleventh season, although the producers decided to kill her off to open up new storylines for the show. Executive producer Mike Scully said it "was a chance for one of our regular characters Flanders to face a challenge and grow in a new direction. The idea came up quickly, we all latched on to it, and it just felt right. We didn't want to kill a character for the sake of killing. We wanted it to have consequences for surviving characters to deal with in future episodes." Roswell returned to "The Simpsons" in 2002 after reaching a deal with Fox to record her lines from her home in Denver. Since returning, she has voiced Maude in flashbacks and as a ghost. When asked by "The Denver Post" on how she thought Ned was doing without Maude, she replied: "OK. But Maude was such a vulnerable character. Maude and Lisa and Marge were the only vulnerable characters, really, everybody else has an edge. So they staff discovered that arc was lost, and now there are a lot of flashbacks with Maude."