YMMV / The Simpsons S8E14 "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Children shouldn't be used for focus groups. They are too noisy and chaotic to offer advice.
  • While advertisement tends to hyperbolize what is being sold, when you compare it as something as important to history as man landing on the moon, you probably are asking too much from the audience.
• Accidental Innuendo: "My knob tastes funny."^note Please refrain from tasting the knob.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Is the episode's primary message that fanbases are entitled and immature losers who should be grateful to studios for providing them entertainment? Or are cartoonists and executives greedy hacks who should be held to account for making an easy profit at the expense of quality?
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Did the Itchy and Scratchy creative team only pretend to be moved by Homer's speech and plan to omit it from the beginning, or were they sincerely approving, only to chicken out afterwards, given the clearly rushed and slapdash nature of the re-edit? On a related note, was June Bellamy genuinely trying to save Poochie (and thereby Homer's job) or did she know that Meyers would do what he wanted regardless, and was just trying to make Poochie's exit less unpleasant for Homer?
  • Also did the Poochie Episode truly fail because of Poochie, or because it didn‘t actually include any violence at the fireworks factory? Given that the show primarily run on cartoon blood and gore, not delivering that to fans was arguably a much bigger change to the format than introducting a new character.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: A down to earth animated show with magic robots doesn't sound out of place of being an Anime premise, or even a Power Rangers premise. Even the idea of winning something when you watch is similar to the "Who's That Pokémon?" commercial breaks for Pokémon: The Series.
• Broken Base: Due to the scenes where hardcore Simpsons fans are portrayed through characters like the details-obsessed nerds and the extremely dismissive Comic Book Guy, some of the regular alt.tv.simpsons reviewers on Usenet were so offended that they practically rage-quit on the series, as suggested by newsgroup member Matthew Kurth's comments on this episode recap.^note TL;DR: Kurth spends 16 finger-pointing, nitpicky paragraphs wondering why this episode depicted die-hard animation fans as finger-pointing nitpickers Many other reviewers, however, appreciated the perceived on-the-nose jabs at the newsgroup's members and felt they were well-deserved. (Strangely, but perhaps not surprisingly, these reviewers would mostly change their tune when The Simpsons pulled something similar three seasons later with "Saddlesore Galactica.")^note Though "Saddlesore Galactica" being famous for being a Bizarro Episode probably didn't help in that case.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Roy, the Simpsons houseguest parodying Remember the New Guy?, has taken on an ironic source of popularity in the fandom despite only appearing briefly, with many turning him into a Play-Along Meme that treats him as the most important and interesting character in the entire series.
  • Poochie himself is rather well liked, even if it's mostly for meta reasons, since he's an extremely accurate representation of both the Creator's Pet trope (at least when Homer is concerned) and of how mindlessly adding new characters to a show without making said characters work to keep the show fresh can ruin it.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Watching this episode today, one would see striking similarities between the backlash against Poochie and his actor Homer and the real-life backlash against Jar-Jar Binks and his actor, Ahmed Best, who was harassed by irate Star Wars fans to the point that he contemplated suicide.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Marge embarrasses Bart by hugging him, and embarrasses him more by admitting she does it while he's asleep. Aww...
  • June Bellamy is the only Itchy and Scratchy castmate who isn't greedy or incompetent, and she and Homer have a good working relationship. She even asks Roger Meyers Jr. to give Poochie one more chance, albeit in vain.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Homer asks if Itchy & Scratchy will be broadcast live, to which June replies that "Very few cartoons are broadcast live, it's a terrible strain on the animators' wrists." However, in 2016—season 27 of The Simpsons, and 19 years after this episode's broadcast—there actually was a three-minute segment that was aired live (with Adobe Character Animator software).
  • Despite being killed off of Itchy and Scratchy, with audiences near-unanimously celebrating his departure, Poochie still returns in cameos throughout the series. Fitting given the Ignored Epiphany ending.
  • Krusty comparing Poochie's debut to the moon landing ended up being prescient of DiC's Totally Radical promotional commercial for Sailor Moon, which also compares the anime's debut to the very same event.
  • Roger Myers Jr.'s final line of dialogue in this episode is dubbing Poochie's voice with "I have to go now. My planet needs me." This is Myers' final speaking appearance, initially giving his line as Poochie an amusing double meaning, but serving as Harsher in Hindsight as voice actor Alex Rocco's death in 2015 likely prevents Myers from ever returning again.
  • Milhouse becomes frustrated when Itchy and Scratchy never reach the fireworks factory in Poochie's debut episode. Milhouse's voice actress, Pamela Hayden, would later play a character found in the Fireworks Factory level of 2000's Spyro: Year of the Dragon.
  • "Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes registering my disgust throughout the world." Yes, believe it or not, complaining on the Internet is something that only nerds used to do.
  • In 2022, a Chinese streaming service released a version of Fight Club that abruptly ended with a title card saying that authorities disarmed all the bombs and "Tyler" got psychiatric help before getting released in 2012. Suffice to say, a lot of people compared it with the "Note: Poochie died on the way to his home planet." title card.
  • The focus group is baffled by the kids' eager assent to everything they suggest for Itchy & Scratchy, leading to the conclusion that what they really want is "a realistic, down-to-earth show that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots." Over time, several animated series would be created which would juxtapose characters dealing with mundane problems with science fiction/fantasy concepts (e.g. Futurama, The Venture Bros. and later Rick and Morty). Futurama comes up the most in relation to this line, not only because it shares a creator with The Simpsons, but because Futurama showrunner David X. Cohen wrote "The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show"!
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I have to go now. My planet needs me." Note: Poochie died on the way to his home planet.^ExplanationHow Poochie is written out of the show at the end, often quoted whenever someone is similarly written out of a work for whatever reason.
  • "Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder." ^ExplanationWhat Doug says after scoffing at what he perceives as an inaccuracy in the animation of an Itchy & Scratchy episode during a Q&A with Homer and June Bellamy. This is generally quoted sarcastically to fans who are seen as being too nitpicky over animation or continuity errors.
  • The phrase "Get to the fireworks factory" became a commonplace saying for reaching the interesting part of a story.
  • "When Poochie isn't on screen, the characters should ask "Where's Poochie?"" ^ExplanationHomer's terrible suggestion on how to handle Poochie as a character, which is often used to describe the handling of actual Creator's Pet characters.
• Play-Along Meme: This episode parodies characters being abruptly introduced while the narrative acts like they were there all along with Roy, a young man who has never been seen before but is treated as if he's been staying in the Simpsons' house for quite a while. Naturally, many viewers took this idea and ran with it, pretending that Roy is one of the show's major characters rather than the one-shot he actually is. Less frequently, the "two sexy ladies" he mentions moving out to live with have been known to get this treatment, despite neither of them even appearing onscreen.
• Signature Scene: Poochie's "death" is not just the best remembered part of this episode, but one of the most wildly referenced jokes in the show's entire run.
• Strawman Has a Point: As part of the episode's Both Sides Have a Point theme, these are actually deliberate examples.
  • Comic Book Guy's "worst episode ever" scene is meant to show him as an Entitled Bastard who thinks the creators owe him despite doing nothing for them but complaining. But he's basically right; TV shows aren't easy to make, but they're very profitable, and the creators generally aren't in it out of the charity of their hearts (and they definitely aren't in this case). And the methods TV shows use to make money are, ultimately, dependent on having a large and loyal userbase, whether it's merchandising or ad revenue. And on top of all that, the episode really was bad, with its actual creative process shown onscreen to be lazy and inept, so it's not like he's just complaining for the sake of complaining. He may be a jerk about it, and it's true that the creators don't really owe him anything much personally, but it's silly to say he doesn't have the right to voice his opinion. Bart's response - that the show gives him "hundreds of hours of entertainment for free" - rings particularly hollow given how The Simpsons is one of the most merchandised and marketed television series ever made; you may not pay for the show, but they're certainly expecting you to pay through the nose for everything related to the show. Though Bart is also correct to call out Comic Book Guy's entitlement assertion that the writers "owe" him and there is a general point, that the years of quality the show has had should grant the writers a bit of leeway when they mess up, is a good one, even if it's not applicable in this case due to the half-assed production. (The Real Life subtext is that many fans online had been quick to pronounce The Simpsons past its prime and declare weaker episodes to be the "worst episode ever," while in hindsight these seasons are still considered part of the show's golden age.)
  • Homer's defensiveness of Poochie is treated like a lost cause, given the character clearly doesn't mesh with the show, but the clear reasoning behind this is because Homer is the only person in the creative team who cares about making Poochie work properly, with Executive Meddling mostly defining Poochie's creation by fads and the writers' clear apathy in making him integrate into the formula (to the point of making him Immune to Slapstick and writing zero jokes around him). Along with the fact that they immediately deem Poochie a failed concept and decide to kill him off after one episode (ironically for a show where killing a character off temporarily is the main shtick), it is easy to argue the character could have worked if anyone else had even a sliver of the passion to have him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap that Homer did. This sticks out further given The Simpsons own tendency to add new characters to the mix since it first aired, even gimmicky ones, and actually make them work through competent writing.
  • For the rest of the creative and production team, the simple fact is that the target audience is tuning out, and despite their defensiveness of keeping it in top quality, they only appreciate it for a short while afterwards. Despite Lisa making the fair point that after so many years, waning interest is going to happen, the hard truth is that if a show isn't making the ratings to keep it profitable, it has to find a way to regain them or risk being taken off the air. The show's plan to modernise itself (and then reverse it when it bombed) was handled in the flimsiest, unfunniest manner possible, but did regenerate interest in the show, if only briefly.
  • The kids' focus group is depicted as self-contradictory by wanting a show that's realistic and down-to-earth, but also "completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots." A balance of realistic and speculative fiction elements is possible and has been done in several shows (though some came out after this episode had aired), and with an episodic show like Itchy & Scratchy, it's theoretically possible to have some episodes be more realistic and other episodes be more off-the-wall. The Simpsons itself even achieves this balance, with some episodes dealing with more grounded family drama and others being deliberate Bizarro Episodes.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The episode is a perfect encapsulation of the nineties' obsession with Totally Radical characters with attitude and the desperate (and usually failed) attempts by corporations to appeal to kids of the time with forced hipness. It still works fairly well, though, as a major point to Poochie's character is that he's based on the few ideas of what the kids are doing that could trickle upward into the executive's office - meaning that as the years go on, he becomes even more pathetically outdated.
  • Bart tells Comic Book Guy that the Itchy & Scratchy studio has provided him with "hours of entertainment for free". While this might have been technically true in the 90s if the show aired on an analogue television station, by the 2010s-2020s most major American TV shows air on cable networks and/or streaming services that require some form of paid subscription to access. So there isn't really a way to (legally) access that entertainment for free anymore.
• Values Dissonance: Before the Streaming era when shows were only shown on TV, the vast majority of Western Animation followed a strict episodic format where the status quo never changed (characters never developed, most conflicts introduced would be resolved in the same episode, and if a new character appeared in an episode, they would be gone by the end of it). Most of them would air one episode per day at most and reruns were also a big part of the business, making serialized stories not viable for the most part, so the addition of a new character to a series that followed a strict formula and said character would stay was something that would catch people's attention because it was rare. Nowadays, with most western cartoons having abandoned the episodic format in favor of serialized stories thanks to the streaming model changing how people watch shows, not to mention the boom in popularity of anime, where serialized stories have been the norm for most of its existence, a show adding a new character wouldn't be seen as a "big event"; it would be expected by the audience and seen as a logical way to continue a story.
• Values Resonance:
  • The episode mocks executives who ruin their franchises with cheap stunts and rating gimmicks. With many movies and TV shows being reboots and rewrites of past successes, this episode is more and more relevant.
  • Similarly, the obsessive and entitled fanbases who believe the creators owe them, and in turn the creators who bend in every direction to appease them, has become more problematic with the growth of the Internet.

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