"Lisa's Sax" is the first episode that Al Jean had ever been credited as having written by himself. Before this episode, all of his writing credits had been shared with Mike Reiss. The episode was written with a small staff that consisted of Jean, Reiss and David Stern, among others. According to Reiss, the final episode contained 80–90% of Jean's original script. It is the sixth flashback episode done by the show. "The Way We Was" was the first flashback episode and in it, Homer graduated from high school in 1974 and that made it difficult to have a realistic timeframe as this episode is set in 1990. Jean conceived the idea for the "All in the Family" style opening while waiting to get tickets to the O.J. Simpson murder trial. The episode was very short and the clip of Lisa playing the sax at the end was added to lengthen it.