The episode marks the first appearance of Gil Gunderson and Cookie Kwan. Excuses were made by the writers to bring back Gil in future episodes based on Dan Castellaneta's performance at the table read, which proved popular with the staff.
The music during the fight was previously used in Separate Vocations (1992) during Bart's police chase.
At one point in the episode, Snake sets up a wire across a road to decapitate Homer as he drives by. The wire is supplied by "Acme", after the brand of equipment used by Wile E. Coyote to try and stop Road Runner in the Looney Tunes cartoons.
Johnny D's prison uniform number is "5F06," which is the production code for this episode. In addition, the number on Snake's prison uniform is "7F20;" this is the production code for The War of the Simpsons (1991) which was the episode Snake first appeared in.