Many of the Itchy and Scratchy staff members are caricatures of the actual Simpsons staff.
The episode features the first appearance of Comic Book Guy's catchphrase "Worst. "Noun". Ever".
In ProSieben airings, the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club couch gag is replaced with the Flintstones couch gag from "Kamp Krusty", as this episode (at the time) tied with The Flintstones as America's longest-running primetime animated series. The "Flintstones couch gag" change also applies to American reruns (barring cable syndication and the DVD/streaming versions).
However the audio from the original couch gag is still heard.
Roy was supposed to appear in "Time and Punishment" from Treehouse of Horror V in an alternate universe where he is Homer's son.
The episode, and Roy in particular, is a reference to FOX trying to convince the writers to add a new character to the Simpsons' household.
Doug references the Itchy and Scratchy episode with the production number 2F09. In The Simpsons, that is the production code for "Homer the Great".
Ned telling Homer how much he enjoyed the episode could be reference to a scene in "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily" where he watches an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon and is horrified by the violence.
Cultural References[]
This episode's theme is a reference to the TV phenomenon of "jumping the shark", when a TV show loses popularity due to outlandish stunts (adding new characters, in this case) for ratings, backstage issues (such as creative burn-out, cast members quitting, getting fired, or being replaced; or change in writing) ruining the show, or the show no longer having the edge and popularity it once had (which can be argued as the main reason why The Simpsons isn't as popular as it once was).
The couch gag (which was used before on "Bart After Dark") is a homage to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album by The Beatles.
June Bellamy, voiced by Simpsons regular Tress MacNeille, is a reference to veteran voice actress June Foray.
The scene where Homer hides in a closet and hears that Poochie will be killed off is a reference to Jay Leno supposedly hiding in a closet during a meeting of NBC executives discussing options of possibly replacing Jay Leno as host of the Tonight Show due to his support of his manager and Tonight Show Executive Producer Helen Kushnick who was disliked by executives at NBC including NBC Chairman Bob Wright, Entertainment President Warren Littlefield and Vice President of Business Affairs John Agoglia all of who wanted to get rid of Kushnick.
Roy is largely based on Fonzie, calling Homer and Marge Mr. and Mrs. S, similar to how Fonzie refers to Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham as "Mr. C" and "Mrs. C".
Roy saying he will move in with "two sexy ladies" is a reference to the sitcom Three's Company.
Krusty without his topmost piece of hair
Krusty exclaiming his disappointment and wanting "Chinese cartoons" may refer to programming trends at the time around the mid 1990s, when cable and basic channels began to pick up Japanese anime like Sailor Moon, Pokemon, and Dragon Ball for their immense cost effective profit dividend payoff margins and providing rarely made content and entertainment value outside of slapstick and conventional superhero fare; unsurprisingly, Krusty in this case is also reflective of many opinions of executives who saw little else but the business in this importing boom. The opinions of the kids at the focus group wanting a "down to earth animated show with magical robots" also appear to hint to anime and even sentai/"Power Rangers"-esque series and their rise in interest as well.
The Itchy & Scratchy cartoon introducing Poochie is titled, "The Beagle Has Landed" which is reference the "Eagle has landed" said by Neil Armstrong when the module (called eagle) made contact with the surface of the Moon.
Snoopy, one of the famous cartoon dogs, is also a beagle.
Krusty's preamble before the new cartoon introducing Poochie explained how it was going to be the biggest televised event since man walked on the Moon in 1969 and again in 1971. Krusty is being inaccurate as NASA has had six successful Moon landing missions (Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17) with the last mission in 1972. Apollo 14 and 15 were both in 1971. The fist picture behind Krusty is Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, taken by Neil Armstrong in 1969. In the episode the photograph has an American flag while the real photograph does not. The next photograph is based on a real one from Apollo 14 of Jim Irwin except the animation had him holding a golf club while in the real photograph he is scooping up soil. It was Alan Shepard on Apollo 15 who brought out a 6-iron to hit a golf ball on the Moon.
Goofs[]
On the Krusty cereal box towards the beginning of the episode, Krusty is missing the hair on the top of his head.
On the Krusty cereal box the side Lisa is looking at Krusty is missing one of the side pieces of his hair.
Scratchy's skeleton without a spine
For a frame in the final Itchy & Scratchy cartoon of the episode, Scratchy's skeleton is missing its spine.
In Krusty's office the poster with Mr. Teeny his fur is pink instead of the usual brown.
Production Notes[]
The final draft for this episode was published on July 25, 1996.[1]
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 his gold mine while glorifying capitalism. He then proceeds to sit on an 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.
