Production
"Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" is an acclaimed episode which dealt with censorship issues and allowed the writers to have a lot of Itchy & Scratchy cartoons, which many fans had been clamoring for. The episode was written by John Swartzwelder, who loved Itchy & Scratchy and wrote several episodes that have them at the center. The episode was partially inspired by Terry Rakolta, who protested the Fox network over the show Married... with Children. For the episode, which handles a large issue, the writers tried not to have a point of view and looked at both sides, despite what the writers personally felt. During the original airing of the episode, the Fox satellite blew out and the entire West coast of the United States missed the first act of the episode.
This was the first episode directed by Jim Reardon, who had previously made a student film called "Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown" which was very violent and the experience served him well for this episode. There are several characters who work at I&S studios who are caricatures of real people: the cartoonist who draws the Marge/Squirrel is based on Eddie Fitzgerald, who worked at Filmation and the three people with Meyers when he is asking Marge for suggestions are caricatures of Rich Moore, David Silverman and Wes Archer.
Alex Rocco makes his first of three appearances as Roger Meyers. Many people behind The Simpsons were huge fans of The Godfather and Jim Reardon looked for a way to shoot him in the eye as a reference to Rocco's character, Moe Greene.
The long montage of the Kids of Springfield playing was directed by Bob Anderson and is making a satirical point by saying the opposite of what the writers believed. The segment was written by John Swartzwelder and the idea of using Beethoven's 6th Symphony was in the original script. James L. Brooks had wanted the episode to end with the montage, but the writers disagreed. Roger Meyers, Jr. makes his first appearance in this episode, as does Sideshow Mel, although he does not have any lines until the later episode "Black Widower".
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)