Milhouse liking Vaseline on toast was based on a child from Josh Weinstein's school days who everyday would get onto the bus with a piece of toast, which had Vaseline on it.
The promo showed Lisa riding on the back of Nelson's bike, a scene which wasn't used in the episode.
Josh Weinstein called this one of the most "real" episodes, commenting that every character in the episode, from Superintendent Chalmers to Lisa, acts like a real person throughout.
Lisa remarks that Nelson is "like a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a vest", a reference to "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma"; this was Winston Churchill's opinion of Russia at the outbreak of World War II.
By this time, the show had begun to have episodes revolving around secondary characters. This was the first episode to revolve around Nelson, and was done to partly explain why Nelson acts the way he does.