Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie - Production

Production

This episode, like many other Itchy & Scratchy themed episodes, was written by John Swartzwelder, although the plot was originally pitched by Sam Simon. During the table read of the script, the first act received many laughs, but the second act got little positive reaction, leading Al Jean to believe that the script would require a huge rewrite, although the third act also received a positive reaction. For The Itchy & Scratchy Movie shown at the end of the episode, Mike Reiss felt that it should top all other Itchy & Scratchy cartoons in terms of violence, and John Swartzwelder wrote the "most disturbing, horrible sequence", none of which was used.

This was the first episode that Rich Moore directed at Film Roman. The shot of the Korean animation studio really angered the Korean animators at Rough Draft Studios and Gregg Vanzo, the overseas director, was really insulted and almost sent the scene back. While drawing the Steamboat Itchy sequence, the animators jokingly referred to it as "Steamboat Lawsuit". David Silverman explained that he did not know "why weren't sued because there's a shot right out of Steamboat Willie in ."

The episode features the first appearance of Bumblebee Man, who is a caricature of "El Chapulín Colorado" ("The Red Grasshopper"), a character created and portrayed by Mexican television comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños (aka "Chespirito"), and his show consists of simple skits, often involving heavy slapstick. According to the producers whenever they watched Telemundo, this character was always "on", and then they created Bumblebee Man, who is also always "on".