Christina Ricci was not able to come to the recording studio, so she recorded all of her lines over the phone. Josh Weinstein, who was a fan of Ricci, thought she did a nice performance in the episode.
Marge mentions that Bart has not said "Don't have a cow, man" in four years. As of this episode, it was actually six years (or six years, three months and twenty-two days, to be precise).
The staff of the show wanted to do a summer episode because there was "so much stuff" about summer vacations that they felt had to be covered in an episode.
David Silverman, one of the show's animators, particularly liked the episode because he thought it captured the feeling of being on summer vacation.
The title is a nod to the film "Summer of '42".