The Beagle Has Landed is an episode of The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Comic Book Guy later proclaimed it to be the "Worst. Episode. Ever!" and many other characters, including Bart, Lisa, Milhouse and Marge reacted negatively to it.
Plot[]
This episode marks the debut of Poochie. Itchy and Scratchy are in a car together on their way to the fireworks factory on the way they pass signs indicated how much further they have till they get there. On the way they run into new character Poochie (voiced by Homer Simpson) who goes on a long rap to introduce himself and illustrate how "Hip" & "Extreme" he is and also how much attitude he has (note the sunglasses) and finishes by telling children watching to always recycle to the extreme. Poochie then drives Itchy and Scratchy's car past the fireworks factory.
Behind the laughter[]
The original premise of Poochie's debut episode, and by extension Poochie's overall characterization (and to an extent the reason why the audience hated him), was originally quite different, as David X. Cohen revealed in the DVD commentary for the episode and even read the script detailing the initial version of the episode. Specifically, Poochie was depicted as a stereotypical wealthy businessman who repeatedly whipped Itchy and Scratchy to conduct more labor at a gold mine while glorifying capitalism. He then proceeds to sit on a velvet throne with money bags and sipping champagne. Eventually, Itchy and Scratchy get fed up with his disrespectful treatment of them and decided to kill him. Their plan was to disguise Itchy as a money bag, with Scratchy presenting him to Poochie, with Itchy then popping out of the bag to inject him with poison when he sniffs the contents. However, it massively backfired due to Poochie being dismayed at the small size of the bag and lit it on fire in order to light his cigar to show its worthlessness, burning Itchy to death, and causing the latter to accidentally kill Scratchy in turn by throwing away the syringe with poison in it while coming out as a burning skeleton and it jabbing Scratchy in the foot as a result. Poochie, witnessing this, then shrugged it off, citing he can always get more workers due to having millions of dollars.