Sesame Street has a history of addressing difficult topics as part of its affective curriculum goals, including death, marriage, childbirth, and disaster.

Extensive research was conducted before these episodes were written and produced to determine their focus, and after they aired, to analyze their impact on viewers.

The episode was reviewed by the Children's Television Workshop's (CTW) advisory board, content experts, and developmental psychologists.

After tests showed that their young viewers were confused by the episode and did not understand important concepts about divorce, the producers decided not to air it, despite the investment they had made.

Eventually, after the show's first season, its critics forced its staff to address affective goals more overtly, which occurred after "extensive research and planning.

"[4] According to writer Michael Davis, Sesame Street's curriculum began addressing affective goals more overtly during the 1980s.

As early as 1989, writer and director Jon Stone expressed his intention of writing a script about it, stating, "My two projects for this year are drugs and divorce.

She said that "divorce is a middle-class thing," and suggested instead that an episode focus on a single-parent family, with the child born out of wedlock with an absent father.

"[20] Puppeteer Jerry Nelson, who was one of the original performers of Snuffy,[21] noted, "Now we delve into things like divorce that are likely to affect small children very heavily.

"[22] Instead of using the human characters in the show's cast, the writers and producers decided to use Muppets to present their narrative about the effects of divorce on young children.

Long-time cast member Bob McGrath stated, "They knew they couldn't do it with either of our married couples—Gordon and Susan or Maria and Luis—so they tried it with Snuffleupagus, writing a show about his parents getting divorced.

"[20] Staff writer Norman Stiles, who also wrote the episode in which Mr. Hooper's death was explained, was assigned to compose the script.

"[19] Despite Gordon's reassuring the Muppets Elmo, Big Bird, and Telly, children believed that their parents' arguments would lead to divorce.

"[23] CTW Research director Valeria Lovelace recommended scrapping the episode and going "back to the drawing board" and the idea was abandoned, at least for the season.

It included a 22-minute DVD, a caregiver guide, a storybook, a tip sheet for extended families and friends, mobile apps and social networking sites, and an online toolkit.

[26] Footage from the episode exists at the Museum of the Moving Image near the studios where Sesame Street is recorded, and was screened for the public in November 2019.