Homer waking up on a golf course was a reference to something that happened to a friend of the producers, who blacked out, and woke up on a golf course. He had to buy a map from 7-Eleven in order to find out where he was. He discovered that not only was he in a different town, but he was also in a different state. He then had to walk several miles in order to get back to his friend's house, which was the last place he remembered being the night before.
Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan were the writers' top two choices to play the coyote; the writers had wanted to use one of The Highwaymen as the voice of the spirit guide. Dylan had turned the show down many times, having previously been offered a role in Homerpalooza (1996). Cash was offered the role, which he accepted. Matt Groening described Cash's appearance as "one of the greatest coups the show has ever had".
While Homer is hallucinating, Edna Krabappel talks like a teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons and Jasper Beardly says "Goo-goo-gachoob", a reference to The Beatles' song "I am the Walrus".
Most of the hallucination sequence was animated completely by David Silverman. He did not want the risk of sending it to South Korea, as he wanted it to look exactly as he had imagined it, including rendered backgrounds to give a soft mystical feel to the scene. The coyote was intentionally drawn in a boxier way so that it looked "other-worldly" and unlike the other characters.
The telephone wires in the Simpson house are labeled NSA (National Security Agency), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), KGB (Soviet Secret Police) and MCI (Global Communications), seen briefly between the floorboards of the first and second floor.