Dottie's daughter, Opal, has a poster on her bedroom door featuring Bart Simpson. Julie Kavner, who plays Dottie, has voiced Marge Simpson, Bart's mother, on The Simpsons (1989) since 1989.
After over a year in turnaround (from Columbia), the project was green-lighted in a speculative casting meeting at 20th Century-Fox. Nora Ephron suggested Julie Kavner, and much to the producers' astonishment, studio chairman, Joe Roth said "Go," at a taut budget just under $11 million.
Initially setup at Columbia Pictures, where its sluggish development was oversaw by then-co-chairman Jon Peters. According to Nora Ephron, during their initial creative meeting (at Peters residence) she told him about the movie (since he still hadn't read the script), in which a funny woman who loves stand-up comedy and her two daughters tries to do justice to both callings. He proceeded to tell her about his self-parenting therapy, "which seems to consist of talking to yourself as a child in a slightly patronizing way." Peters's then-girlfriend, a Swedish model named Vendela, interrupted their meeting; "She too had not read the script and was not a mother, but she had some notes about the entire subject." In 1990, Peters eventually put the project into turnaround; Before departing the Columbia lot Ephron asked the studio boss if he ever got around to reading their script? Jon Peters famously responded: "I've made over 60 movies. I don't have to read a script to know whether it works or not."