The Itchy & Scratchy Show - Role in The Simpsons

Role in The Simpsons

The Itchy & Scratchy Show is a show within a show that appears occasionally in episodes of The Simpsons. They typically appear in the form of 15-60 second cartoons that are filled with over-the-top violence, usually initiated by Itchy the mouse against Scratchy the cat; Itchy is almost always the victor. Itchy & Scratchy airs as a segment on the Krusty the Klown show and also aired on its brief replacement Gabbo.

The Itchy & Scratchy show is usually a parody of traditional cartoons or takeoffs on famous films, but the plot and content are always violent. The most direct and obvious example is Tom and Jerry, an animated series which was also about a constant battle between a cat and a mouse, with the mouse usually victorious. Itchy and Scratchy also includes shorts such as "Scratchtasia", a parody of Fantasia, and "Pinitchio", a parody of Pinocchio. Itchy & Scratchy are often used for animation-related jokes. For example, the Manhattan Madness cartoon in "The Day the Violence Died" is based on very early animated cartoons such as Gertie the Dinosaur. Itchy and Scratchy often play out an exaggerated form of the conflict in the surrounding episode. For example, in "Deep Space Homer" (season five, 1994), Homer is recruited by NASA, and later watches an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon which directly (and gruesomely) parodies the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien.