Production
The episode was written by series writer Patrick Meighan in his second episode of the season, the first being "Road to Germany", and directed by former King of the Hill and The Oblongs director Julius Wu before the conclusion of the series' seventh production season.
"420" has been noted for being the final appearance of the recurring character Kevin Swanson, the son of characters Joe and Bonnie Swanson. Since the fifth season episode "Saving Private Brian", series creator Seth MacFarlane and other staff writers had planned on writing out the character. MacFarlane recalls not having ideas to write for the character. During the episode's production, the character of James the cat was originally colored white, but MacFarlane decided that it bear orange fur after he thought that white was a fairly dull color. The featured musical number, "A Bag o' Weed," was based on the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang song "Me Ol' Bamboo".
In addition to the regular cast, voice actor Phil LaMarr and voice actor Kerrigan Mahan guest starred in the episode. Recurring guest voice actors Lori Alan, Chris Cox, actor Ralph Garman, writer Danny Smith, writer Alec Sulkin and writer John Viener also made minor appearances.
"420", along with the seven other episodes from Family Guy's eighth season and seven from the seventh season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on June 15, 2010. The DVDs included brief audio commentaries by Seth MacFarlane, various crew and cast members from several episodes, a collection of deleted scenes, a special mini-feature that discussed the process behind animating "Road to the Multiverse", and a mini-feature entitled Family Guy Karaoke. The set also includes a reprint of the script for the episode.
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