Anecdotes

During one scene in the episode, one girl's Malibu Stacy doll says "My Spidey Sense is tingling! Anyone call for a web-slinger?", a reference to a practical joke by the Barbie Liberation Organization in the early 1990s in which the voiceboxes of talking Barbie and G.I. Joe toys were swapped.

Kathleen Turner guest starred in the episode as Stacy Lovell. David Mirkin thought Turner was "completely game" when she showed up at the recording studio to record her lines as she "nailed" her lines really fast. He added that he enjoyed directing her and he thought she had one of the best performances ever on the show.

Two years before this episode aired, Mattel released a talking Barbie doll that attracted similar controversy. The doll lamented that "Math class is tough," which the American Association of University Women thought was offensive. The president of the AAUW claimed the target audience were preteens at risk for losing confidence in science and math. The phrase was one of 270 total phrases the doll could speak. Four of the 270 phrases were picked at random and added to the electronic storage of the doll during manufacturing.

Maggie can write her name on an Etch-A-Sketch, once again indicating her intelligence.

The plot of the episode was inspired by the Teen Talk Barbie talking doll that caused controversy in the United States in the early 1990s. In July 1992, Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie, which spoke a number of phrases including "Will we ever have enough clothes?", "I love shopping!", and "Wanna have a pizza party?" Each doll was programmed to say four out of 270 possible phrases, so that no two dolls were likely to be the same. One of these 270 phrases was "Math class is tough!". Although only about 1.5% of all the dolls sold said the phrase, it led to criticism from the American Association of University Women because they regarded it as demeaning to women. In October 1992, Mattel announced that Teen Talk Barbie would no longer say the phrase, and offered a swap to anyone who owned a doll with that particular phrase.