Within the script for “The Day the Earth Stood Silly,” written by Jeff Westbrook (with a narrative by Westbrook and David X. Cohen), the Hypnotoad was merely described as an enormous toad with hypnotic eyes. Ervin regarded to the Argentine horned frog as a mannequin, a spherical, squat amphibian also called a Pacman frog for its resemblance to the Namco arcade star. The Argentine horned frog additionally has an infinite mouth. The Hypnotoad sits slightly extra upright. With a little bit of embarrassment, Ervin famous that the Hypnotoad was not based mostly on a toad in any respect.
For the hypnotic eyes, Ervin recalled a really particular second from “The Simpsons” as inspiration, seen within the image above. The eerie eyes of the Hypnotoad have been meant to mimic Bart Simpson’s eyes when he ate an excessive amount of sugar. In Ervin’s phrases:
“As for his eyes, I checked out these oddly-shaped eyes {that a} frog has and based mostly it on that. Additionally, I might beforehand labored on ‘The Simpsons’ episode ‘Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood,’ the place Bart and Milhouse get all amped up on Squishees and have these loopy eyes. It was a little bit of a nod to that.”
“Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood” first aired on November 18, 1993 throughout the present’s eighth season.