History JustForFun / TheItchyAndScratchyShow

** Roger Meyers Sr. is a very unflattering portrayal of Creator/WaltDisney. The backstory of the I&S studio is a mishmash of conspiracy theories about the Disney Company.

''The Itchy & Scratchy Show'' is a ShowWithinAShow on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. It passes itself off as a typical cat and mouse chase, based on the old cartoon shorts of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' and ''WesternAnimation/HermanAndKatnip'' (mostly the latter). The cartoons are usually aired during ''The Krusty the Klown Show''.

** A UsefulNotes/WorldWarII-era WartimeCartoon is animated in a style reminiscent of 1940s cartoons. (It also has the closest visual resemblance to classic ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' in the show's history.)

* BloodierAndGorier: Compared to ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry''.

* CorruptedCharacterCopy: Itchy is basically [[WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry Jerry]] if he were a violent sociopath.

* PunnyName: ''Itchy'' and ''Scratchy''. The Latin American version of the series localizes their names to ''Tommy'' and ''Daley'', which aside from being a more direct ShoutOut to ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'', also showcases their pecking order ("Tome y dale" means "Take and Give" -- as in "take injuries and give injuries").

* {{Retraux}}: Itchy and Scratchy in general are obvious homages to the violent cartoons from UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation, like ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' and ''WesternAnimation/HermanAndKatnip''.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Squeak the Mouse'' and ''WesternAnimation/HermanAndKatnip'', rather than ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry''.

** In one episode, we see a clip of an untitled UsefulNotes/WorldWarII-era short, where a very WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry-esque Itchy and Scratchy team up to torment and kill UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. Immediately afterwards, Itchy turns on Scratchy and cuts his head off, joined by UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt to kick the bodies.

* AnimalsFearNeutering: "Spay Anything" has Scratchy visit a hospital where Itchy is a doctor. Itchy then decides that Scratchy needs to get neutered, and Scratchy is understandably terrified (to the point where he has to be strapped to the table so Itchy can begin the procedure).

* MockyMouse: Though he has more in common with Jerry or Herman than Mickey, Itchy ''is'' a bipedal cartoon mouse wearing WhiteGloves, some of the cartoons he starred in include "[[WesternAnimation/SteamboatWillie Steamboat Itchy]]" and "[[WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}} Scratchtasia]]", and he's the mascot of a SouvenirLand theme park.

* {{Autocannibalism}}: In one short, Itchy (disguised as a restaurant employee) serves Scratchy his own belly. The unknowing Scratchy's attempt at eating it only results in the bits of it he swallows popping back out of a hole cut in it.

** Meanwhile, when the pair came to life in the eighth Halloween special, Scratchy falls in love with the Simpsons' cat Snowball II. Marge announces that he'll have to be neutered first, causing hm to scream in terror.

->''"They fight! They bite!''\\

''The Itchy & Scratchy Show!"''

''The Itchy & Scratchy Show'' is a ShowWithinAShow on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. It passes itself off as a cat and mouse chase, based on the old cartoon shorts of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' and ''WesternAnimation/HermanAndKatnip'' (mostly the latter). The cartoons are usually aired during ''The Krusty the Klown Show''.

* AndShowItToYou: "My Bloody Valentine" has Itchy rip out Scratchy's heart and give it back to Scratchy as a Valentine. Scratchy is touched by the gift and puts it on his shelf- until he realizes that he ''needs'' a heart and drops dead.

** A World War II-era propaganda cartoon is animated in a style reminiscent of 1940s cartoons. (It also has the closest visual resemblance to classic ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' in the show's history.)
** ''Itchy & Scratchy Meet Fritz the Cat'' has an R. Crumb-inspired look.

* BaseballEpisode: One episode has Itchy and Scratchy as baseball players [[BatterUp hitting each other with bats]]. A very annoying squirrel then comes in and tells them to stop hitting each other- and Itchy responds by knocking her head off with a swing from his bat.

* BulletHoleSpelling: Shown in "The Sound of Silencers", where policeman Itchy guns down several cats with a Tommy gun[[note]]a reference to the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, when several members of a gang were tricked into coming to a warehouse and then gunned down by rival gansters, some of whom wre disguised as police officers[[/note]], and after the fact, he writes "THE END" in bullets, with the "D" being bloodied due to said blood coming from a cat shot in the chest several times.

* CoincidentalBroadcast: A lot of the time, the subject of the "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoon will be related to the plot of the accompanying ''Simpsons'' episode. Examples include Itchy tricking Scratchy into eating himself in "Lisa the Vegetarian," or the duo engaging in some violent hijinks in outer space in "Deep Space Homer."

* CosmicPlaything: Scratchy. Even the show's incarnation of ''God himself'' sides with Itchy killing him (and even sends him to Hell for the icing on the cake).

* DarkerAndEdgier: In UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation, I&S appeared in the adults-only animated feature ''Itchy & Scratchy Meet Fritz the Cat''.

** In the show's history, early cartoons were fairly routine. In their first appearance – in a Tracey Ullman-era short called "The Bart Simpson Show" – Itchy places a firecracker in Scratchy's mouth; in their first series' appearance (Season 1's "There's No Disgrace Like Home"), the show is simply another "place a bomb in Scratchy's mouth and watch the explosion" cartoon. Future cartoons would be more detailed.

** In-universe, "Manhattan Madness", a cartoon created entirely by Chester J. Lampwick, only features Itchy and had him visiting Manhattan to attack people. "That Happy Cat", meanwhile, is a solo Scratchy effort by Roger Meyers Sr. with {{no plot|NoProblem}} whatsoever. Then Meyers stole Itchy and his formula and used them in "Steamboat Itchy", and the rest is history.

* EnemyMine: The duo brutalized Hitler in one war time cartoon (before Itchy double crossed Scratchy and decapitated him too). Another has them team up against an annoying blue haired squirrel berating their antics (see TakeThat). They also once teamed up to prosecute against a dog in "Dogday Hellody of 1933".

* ExpyCoexistence: Itchy and Scratchy Studios is a clear expy for Creator/{{Disney}}, bearing a lot of similarities with both its founder and its theme parks. However, Disney has also been alluded to in ''The Simpsons'', meaning both companies exist in the same universe.

* FracturedFairyTale: "Pinitchio" is a parody of ''Pinocchio'' starring Itchy as Pinocchio and Scratchy as Gepetto. Itchy promises to never hurt his creator, at which point his nose grows and pokes Scratchy's eye out.

* OldShame: An InUniverse example is heavily implied with the "Itchy And Sambo" cartoons of the late 1930s. They were apparently so racist that even hardcore ''Itchy And Scratchy'' fans like Bart and Lisa Simpson hate them.

* ThePrankster: Itchy is a parody of classic prankster cartoon characters - except his pranks are usually far more violent and gory than in those classic cartoons.

* ReTool: Into a LighterAndSofter show. It was changed back when Marge Simpson, who started the protests against the show's violence, had a wholly different opinion on Michelangelo's David (which was on a coast-to-coast tour of the United States at the time) from the rest of the protesters.

** At some point, the show was briefly expanded into ''The Itchy and Scratchy and Friends Hour'', which featured additional characters [[PunnyName Uncle Ant]], Disgruntled Goat and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Ku Klux Klam]]. The characters were dropped after the show reverted to a series of shorts, but they were featured as toys in Itchy & Scratchy Land.

* SpinOff: The short-lived ''Itchy & Scratchy and Friends Hour'', which introduced a supporting cast of friends for the starring duo, such as Disgruntled Goat, Uncle Ant, and Klu Klux Clam.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Itchy tends to kill Scratchy in this fashion. One of the most outlandish, even for cartoon standards, is Scratchy getting his eye impaled with ''the tip of the Space Needle'' (yes, the restaurant tower in Seattle).

* VictoryIsBoring: In "Tears of a Clone", Scratchy dies for good and Itchy becomes very upset, because he's no longer able to fight Scratchy. So he invents a device to clone Scratchy so he can keep torturing him.

* VocalEvolution: In the "Marge Simpson approved" episodes, Itchy and Scratchy's goofy voices are converted to affable helium pitched ones.

* BulletHoleSpelling: Shown in the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E4BartTheMurderer Bart the Murderer]]", the cartoon shown at the time is "The Sound of Silencers", where policeman Itchy guns down several cats with a Tommy gun[[note]]a reference to the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, when several members of a gang were tricked into coming to a warehouse and then gunned down by rival gansters, some of whom wre disguised as police officers[[/note]], and after the fact, he writes "THE END" in bullets, with the "D" being bloodied due to said blood coming from a cat shot in the chest several times.

* EnemyMine: The duo brutalized Hitler in one war time cartoon (before Itchy double crossed Scratchy and decapitated him too). Another has them team up against an annoying blue haired squirrel berating their antics (see TakeThat). They also once teamed up to prosecute against a dog in "Dogday Hellody of 1933"

* EarAche: One short (''Reservoir Cats'') parodies the scene of ''Film/ReservoirDogs'' in which Mr. Blonde (Itchy) tortures the cop (Scratchy) at the rhythm of ''Stuck in the Middle with You'', including to soak Scratchy with gasoline and the GoryDiscretionShot when the former cuts one of the ears of the latter [[spoiler: after cutting Scratchy's ear, Creator/QuentinTarantino appears complaining about violence being in everything and gets [[OffWithHisHead his head cut off]] by Itchy. The short ends with Itchy and Scratchy parodying one scene of ''Film/PulpFiction'', dancing as the protagonists of that movie while one song of its OST plays]].

* EarAche: One short (''Reservoir Cats'') parodies the scene of ''Film/ReservoirDogs'' in which Mr. Blonde (Itchy) tortures the cop (Scratchy) at the rhythm of ''Stuck in the Middle with You'', including to soak Scratchy with gasoline and the GoryDiscretionShot when the former cuts one of the ears of the latter [[spoiler: after cutting Scratchy's ear, Creator/QuentinTarantino appears complaining about violence being in everything and gets [[OffWithHisHead its head cut]] by Itchy. The short ends with Itchy and Scratchy parodying one scene of ''Film/PulpFiction'', dancing as the protagonists of that movie while one song of its OST plays]].

* EarAche: one short (''Reservoir Cats'') parodies the scene of ''Film/ReservoirDogs'' in which Mr. Blonde (Itchy) tortures the cop (Scratchy) at the rhythm of ''Stuck in the Middle with You'', including to soak Scratchy with gasoline and the GoryDiscretionShot when the former cuts one of the ears of the latter [[spoiler: after cutting Scratchy's ear, Creator/QuentinTarantino appears complaining about violence being in everything and gets [[OffWithHisHead its head cut]] by Itchy. The short ends with Itchy and Scratchy parodying one scene of ''Film/PulpFiction'', dancing as the protagonists of that movie while one song of its OST plays]].

* ComplexityAddiction: Some of the plots used by Itchy to kill Scratchy are hilariously complex and elaborated. For instance, one short takes place in feudal China and it is about a mouse lord killing Scratchy´s father and Scratchy going to train with an OldMaster cat to avenge him. After years of preparation, Scratchy goes to the lord´s castle, now aged, with the intention of slaying him. However, he is stopped in the last moment by the old master cat... who turns out to be Itchy in disguise, who holds Scratchy so the lord can cut the cat into ribbons. So, basically, Itchy, disguised as the cat master, spends years training Scratchy before disposing of him when he could have just done it at the beginning.

* CreatorsPet: Poochie, InUniverse. After mountains of hype, his premiere episode is little more than a giant shill of why kids should like him. This sentiment completely died out at the Itchy & Scratchy studios after the character received heavy backlash, with the sole exception of his voice actor Homer Simpson, who attempted to ask the audience and Roger Meyers Jr to give the pup another chance while recording his death episode, only to learn that his speech was cut, his voice was suddenly replaced and the dog was killed for good.

** In-universe, "Manhattan Madness", a cartoon created entirely by Chester J. Lampwick, only features Itchy and had him visiting Manhattan to attack people. "That Happy Cat", meanwhile, is a solo Scratchy effort by Roger Myers Sr. with {{no plot|NoProblem}} whatsoever. Then Myers stole Itchy and his formula and used them in "Steamboat Itchy", and the rest is history.

* MrAltDisney: Itchy and Scratchy's inventor[[note]] well, Scratchy's inventor at least[[/note]], Roger Myers Sr, is a thinly disguised spoof of Creator/WaltDisney with his theme park and the urban legends surrounding his antisemitism and being cryogenically frozen after his death.

* OverlyLongTongue: Scratchy's isn't so much long as stretchy; at one point it gets tied to a rocket which reaches the moon before Scratchy even notices. Though it's also prehensile, as he was also able to intentionally stretch it far enough to unplug a laser Itchy was trying to kill him with a la ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}''.

--> '''Elvis:''' Aww, this show ain't no good! ''*BANG!*''

** Roger Myers Sr is a very unflattering portrayal of Creator/WaltDisney. The backstory of the I&S studio is a mishmash of conspiracy theories about the Disney Company.

* SweetnessAversion: An in-universe example with the aforementioned LighterAndSofter retooling into a ridiculously sterile SugarBowl cartoon. The kids of Springfield are so put off by it that they all turn off their televisions and decide to [[MundaneMadeAwesome play outside]].

* SweetnessAversion: An in-universe example with the aforementioned LighterAndSofter retooling into a ridiculously sterile SugarBowl cartoon. The kids of Springfield are so put off by it that they all turn off their televisions and decide to [[MundaneMadeAwesome play outside]].