The title comes from The Beatles song "Can't Buy Me Love" composed by Paul McCartney in 1964. It also appeared (albeit as a cover version by NRBQ) in the previous Simpsons episode The Old Man and the 'C' Student (1999).
This is the final episode to be animated by Anivision.
The third act went through several incarnations, and the writers had a lot of ideas about what Burns should do once he has captured the Loch Ness monster. Eventually, the staff settled on the act's current iteration, which was conceived by George Meyer.
The inspiration for the episode came from the concept of "thrillionaires", a term the writers found in an issue of The Economist to describe millionaires who "do really incredible stunts" and "go on amazing adventures".
According to Al Jean, the color of the Loch Ness monster would originally be green, but when the overseas animation was completed, the Loch Ness monster had a "kind of pinkish" color. Because it would be too expensive to re-color all the cels in which the monster appears, the staff decided to air the episode as it was, even though the monster was in the wrong color.