Rodney Dangerfield made a few key changes to his script during the recording of his part; Josh Weinstein kept the annotated script and pen and considers them among his three most prized The Simpsons possessions.
After discovering that Larry Burns is also working in Sector 7G, Homer frantically cleans up and puts away an almost entirely assembled jigsaw puzzle which has an image of Snoopy the dog lying on his doghouse. The puzzle is missing several pieces over where Snoopy's nose should be, which was intentionally drawn that way to avoid copyright laws.
Rodney Dangerfield guest stars in this episode and was a huge favorite of many of the show's writers.
Many of the jokes in the episode were specifically written to be "Dangerfield jokes", which were much tougher to write than the staff had originally thought.
The episode started out as a story about Mr. Burns and Grampa both being stationed in Paris during World War II and falling in love with the same woman, who had a love child. Ian Maxtone-Graham had wanted this episode to be about Burns having a child, which is where it went. The other episode idea became Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish' (1996), which aired in the previous season.