YMMV / The Simpsons S 6 E 4 Itchy And Scratchy Land

• Accidental Aesop: The scene where it looks like Homer crashed the car due to falling asleep only for it to turn out to be a different car and he actually took Marge's advice of spending the night at a hotel can be seen as a lesson to not drive while tired, especially on long road trips.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: When Marge orders the "Baby guts", a lot of people mishear "Mom, that's veal!" as "Mom, that's real!" The absurdity of the restaurant selling real infant entrails is arguably funnier than the intended joke.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Bart finds it ridiculous that the gift shop has no "Bart" vanity license plates, but they do have "Bort" ones. "Bort" is a real name.
• Defictionalisation: "Personalised" keychain souvenirs inscribed with the name "Bort" have become popular at Universal Studios (and yes, they have sold out a lot). Of course, sometimes this is intentionally kept empty - specifically to preserve the gag.
• Franchise Original Sin: This episode is widely remembered as the first canon episode to not only feature unambiguously real Speculative Fiction elements, but (as opposed to a one-off gag) making them a significant part of the plot, development, and climax. The episode did do a good job of introducing those elements gradually and making them seem halfway plausible, and it does end up legitimately funny on its own terms, but it's still one where the last act centers on the family fleeing a Robot Uprising. Later episodes would abuse those elements even moreso, with particularly reviled episodes involving alien abductions, magic powers, sentient bar rags, and elves, but without the humor to back it up, they revealed just how badly it was stretching the world of the show.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The episode opens with Lisa wheeling in a seemingly-unconscious Bart into their parents' room and screaming "Mom, Dad, Bart's DEAD!" as a promotional tactic to get them to take them to Itchy and Scratchy Land. There would be a much later episode titled "Bart's Not Dead" where Bart almost dies for real, not to mention the Dead Bart fanfic that arose after this episode's airing.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • John Travolta is reduced to working as a bartender (whom Marge thinks is an actor who's dressed like him as part of the disco theme) at Itchy's '70s Disco. This episode first aired the same year that Pulp Fiction, which single-handedly resurrected Travolta's career, hit the big screen. What makes it funnier is how this episode aired after the movie hit theaters, but went into production before, which means that the producers couldn’t possibly have known about a Career Resurrection that year.
  • "Aaaah! Shark boy!"
  • The fact that much of the episode parodies Disneyland becomes this as of March 2019, when Disney completed its acquisition of the 20th Century Fox, which means they now own The Simpsons, though ironically not its theme park rights, as they are still with Universal Studios at least domestically.
  • Marge's confusion at the "violent names" on the restaurant menu. In 2019, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge briefly replaced all Star Wars themed dish names from menus presumably to avoid customer confusion (despite the dish's description being clearly written on them) only to walk it back due to fan outcry.
  • The Itchy & Scratchy short at the beginning is called "The Last Traction Hero," a title which would later be used for an episode of the show itself.
  • Homer says that "with modern cars like this (his regular purple one), you can't get lost, because of all the silicon chips" right before getting so lost that he orders the family to never speak of whatever happened. A following episode makes mention that Homer's car is so alleged that it does not has anything resembling a computer in it, but rather it's made of Soviet tank parts.
  • One gag has Homer wreak havoc in Amish Country, knowing they won't retaliate, until he's stopped by a donkey kicking him. A later episode would have Homer cause chaos while riding on a donkey, resulting in the immortal newspaper headline "Local Man Ruins Everything".
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Mom! Dad! [blank]'s dead!"
  • The "Bort" license plates.
  • Hans Moleman's scene at the bird sanctuary ("Hello, I need the biggest seed bell you have. No, that's too big.") has also become a meme, with "biggest" and "seed bell" being replaced by words relevant to the situation^note A popular example being "I need the shittiest take you have. No, that's too shitty.".
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The joke about John Travolta being the bartender in a disco-themed club in an amusement park had a different connotation when this episode aired than now. Most of his 1980s films were poorly received, and the odd Look Who's Talking aside he was doing B-level films by the time this episode was produced. Mere days after this episode originally aired, Pulp Fiction hit American theaters, reviving his career. By The New '10s, however, it had burnt out again, bringing this joke full circle.
  • "Euro Itchy and Scratchy Land" being completely devoid of visitors references the fact that in 1994 Euro Disneyland (now Disneyland Paris) was on the edge of bankruptcy due to poor attendance. It finally managed to turn a profit in 1995 and has since become one of France's most popular tourist attractions.

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