 "Weekend at Burnsie's" features the American rock band Phish as themselves. The idea to include the band in the episode was pitched during the episode's production. "Phish plays at the rally. We thought they 'd be the perfect group to use for the plot.", Jean said. Meyer, who pitched the episode's premise, was a fan of the band, but Jean did not know much of them before they appeared in the episode; "I 've never seen one of their concerts, so I'm not the most familiar", he said. He first became aware of the band after reading an article about them in Entertainment Weekly. As they worked on the episode however, Jean became more acquainted with the band members. "They were nice", he said. "Jon Fishman said to me that the band had talked from time to time about if they were to ever be on The Simpsons, what it would be like. I said, 'Well, how close was it?' He said, 'Pretty close to what we expected.' (laughs) That was gratifying."
