This was the first Treehouse of Horror episode to have actually been broadcast on Halloween. This would not happen again until Treehouse of Horror X (1999) in Season 11.
Al Jean pitched the idea of having "scary names" in the opening credits, inspired by old issues of EC Comics.
There was a debate about whether to include Kang and Kodos in all Halloween specials after the episode; eventually, the writers agreed to make it a tradition.
The Monkey's Paw segment is based on a short story written by W.W. Jacobs at the start of the 20th century.
While writing "The Monkey's Paw", Sam Simon, one of the writers, wanted the fingers to go down in such an order so they would eventually have the middle finger sticking up. Once the animation would have been complete, however, they could not have gone through; Fox would have refused to air the episode. They had considered the alternative of deliberately blurring the middle finger themselves, but decided that Fox would have also refused.