With this 167th episode, this show surpassed the former record holder The Flintstones (1960) as the longest-running American animated show ever.
The idea of the character Roy temporarily residing at the Simpsons residence was based on the suggestion from an actual network executive to introduce a "new, cool" character to live with the Simpsons family in order to spice up the show. The writers rejected this idea and as a way to mock it, they created Roy for this episode without any introduction or explanation on why he was living with the Simpsons as a joke. Roy intentionally resembles Poochie as part of the episode's topic of introducing new characters to a show as an attempt of regaining the public's interest.
As with other episodes centering on the production of The Itchy & Scratchy Show, such as The Front (1993), the show's staff are shown. Almost all of them are based on the actual staff of The Simpsons. In the first scene at the production table the person in the lower right corner, wearing a squid T-shirt, is David X. Cohen. On the left side, the farthest away is Bill Oakley with Josh Weinstein next to him. Next to Weinstein is George Meyer, who is the writer who speaks out and gets fired. The animator shown designing Poochie is supervising director David Silverman. As Silverman plays the tuba, one was drawn into the background of the scene. Other writers who appear include Dan McGrath, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Donick Cary, Ron Hauge, Ned Goldreyer, and Mike Scully, who had to be added in later, as the animators "didn't have his photo" from which to get an accurate likeness.
Homer hiding in the closet to hear what the network executives were planning to do with Poochie is a reference to Jay Leno reportedly eavesdropping on a conversation between NBC executives on whether he or David Letterman would replace Johnny Carson as the host of The Tonight Show (1962).
Homer remarks that June Bellamy can't possibly be the voice of Itchy and Scratchy because she's a lady. In fact, several male characters in The Simpsons are voiced by women including Nelson, Milhouse and Bart.