For years, the writers used this episode as the limit for how much of a jerk Homer could be.
George Meyer came up with the idea of The Leftorium when the creators were trying to figure out what Ned's failed business would be. The inspiration came from a friend of Meyer's who opened a left-handed store that was quickly forced to close down due to lack of business.
The episode featured an unusual amount of animation glitches because the animation studio in Korea was training a new group of animators, and this episode was one of their first efforts. Show runner Mike Reiss said he will always remember it as the episode "that came back animated with a thousand mistakes in it and was just a complete and utter mess." Jim Reardon said there was "literally a mistake in every other scene" when the episode came back from Korea. Several scenes had to be re-animated in the United States because of these glitches, but according to Reardon, "you can still see the lesser ones that got through, such as line quality problems particularly in the first act."
This episode features the second appearance of the character Akira, previously voiced by George Takei, this time voiced by Hank Azaria. He was previously seen in season two's One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish (1991), where he is a waiter at a Japanese restaurant.
This is the first episode where Homer says, "Stupid Flanders!"