In an April 2014, interview with
TV Guide,
The Simpsons executive producer
Matt Selman spoke about how long it took to produce the episode, saying: "We've literally been at this thing for two years — twice the time it takes to do one of our regular episodes — and that's way too long for comedy people to live with the same jokes. It's been an epic process. First, we had to convince [executive producer]
Jim Brooks and our
showrunner,
Al Jean, that a Lego episode was a great idea and not just an excuse for our staff of nerds who grew up in the '70s to crack Lego jokes. There needed to be a real emotional story there."
The Simpsons staff also had to have the approval of the Lego company. "We're pretty picky about how our brand is represented, and
The Simpsons, which is so famous for its satire, has its own distinct point of view", said Jill Wilfert, the Lego Group's vice president of licensing and entertainment. "No one at the show is used to dealing with creative input from the outside, so there was certainly some back-and-forth to get it all right. But, at its core, the Lego brand is all about creativity and imagination. We respect that in others." Wilfert also spoke about how the episode is edgier than most Lego properties, saying that it was "a chance for us to be a little edgier than we might normally be. And because we'll likely bring younger viewers to
The Simpsons, it was an opportunity for them to be more family-friendly." The idea of the episode was conceived several years previous to airing, when the toy company approached Fox about producing a Lego set of the Simpsons' home, including minifigures of
Homer,
Marge,
Bart,
Lisa,
Maggie and
Ned Flanders, which went on sale in February 2014. While that merchandise was still in the works, Wilfert
pitched the idea of a Lego couch gag: "We went to the guys at
The Simpsons and said, 'Wouldn't it be fun if you did your opening couch sequence Lego-style?' They quickly came back to us and said, 'Forget the couch; let's do an entire episode!'" This also explains why this episode has no couch gag.
The Simpsons show runner
Al Jean also explained that the episode is not trying to copy
The Lego Movie, saying: "None of us saw the movie until very late in the process — long after our story was set." Matt Selman added: "Any similarities are completely unintentional. We didn't even know there was a movie. Nobody at Lego told us about it until after the point of no return. But at the eleventh hour, we did manage to sneak in a little wink to the film." The episode's writer
Brian Kelley spoke about how the episode's extensive
CGI forced the staff to work in a whole new way, saying: "With this style of animation, everything needed to be locked in very early on, meaning we had to settle on our story and our jokes and commit to them with no room for screw-ups. On top of that, every character we used had to be built from a 3-D model, which took a lot of time and money." Kelley also explained that a big church sequence in the episode gave the staff a chance to include all of Springfield's citizens, saying: "We pushed as much as we could to get everyone into those pews. We were like, 'More characters! More characters!' because we knew our audience would hate us if any of their favorites didn't get to be LEGOs. You won't see Señor Ding Dong or the Grumple, but I think we crammed in everyone else." Al Jean also spoke about how Lego and
The Simpsons were an easy fit, saying: "But, in a way, the Lego-Simpsons is an even easier fit — and not just because our characters and their minifigures are both yellow. Both styles are similar and deceptive in their simplicity. When you get right down to it, Lego is just bricks, and
Matt Groening's design for our characters is really just eyeballs and a few lines — easy enough for any kid to draw." Kelley also spoke about
The Simpsons staff being big fans of LEGO, saying: "We are major Lego fans at
The Simpsons, and the Lego master builders are huge fans of our show. It's been a fantastic, rewarding experience to pull this off together. After 550 episodes, we really need that shot in the arm. Now we're pushing ourselves for more big episodes. Onward and Upward!" Selman also said that no one on the staff took issue with the episode's tamer approach, saying: "Some of our episodes can get a little outrageous and push the envelope, but we would never want to be rude to our friends at Lego. Let the guys at
South Park do their own Lego episode and go nuts. For us, it was all about sending a love letter." ==Reception==