Itchy & Scratchy & Marge

Credits
Episode 7F09 (#22)
Created by Matt Groening; Developed by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Sam Simon
Written by John Swartzwelder
Directed by Jim Reardon
Executive Producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Sam Simon
Starring Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, and Harry Shearer
Also Starring Pamela Hayden, Maggie Roswell
Special Guest Voice Alex Rocco

Story
Homer is gushing about Marge's pork chops and to reward her for being such a great cook, he goes down to the basement to build her a spice rack.

"Beautiful."

While down there, Maggie grabs a mallet and hits Homer on the head. It's learned that she learned this behavior from Itchy & Scratchy. Marge writes a letter to the president of Itchy & Scratchy Studios but receives a snarky letter back. Marge winds up creating an entire movement going to shut down Itchy & Scratchy so Roger Meyers, the president of the studio, relents and makes Itchy and Scratchy more peaceful and loving.

Kids stop watching Itchy & Scratchy and begin going outside. But when Michelangelo's statue of David is making its way across the country with a stop in Springfield, the same group Marge started wants to censor the statue but Marge isn't on board. Marge is questioned over how she could justify disliking the violence of Itchy & Scratchy but not the nudity of David. Marge cannot so violence returns to Itchy & Scratchy.

Random Observations

• This is one of my favorite episodes from the first two seasons. I like the 'behind-the-scenes' look at Itchy & Scratchy Studios and the argument against violence on television despite the world always being a violent place and of course compared to sex and nudity.
• Like Marge, I am against gratuitous violence on television not because it's offensive or because it may cause some to act on what they see but because it lead to viewers becoming desensitized to real world violence meaning that when something happens they won't react properly and won't be able to empathize with what's going on.
• Krusty can't read so after a couple of turns of the letter, he just crumples it up and throws it away.
• "...and the horse I rode in on?"
• Marge is spending a lot of time with her anti-violence group so the family has to resort to eating TV dinners.
  Homer: "There's peas in my fruit cobbler."
  Lisa: "There's peas everywhere."
• All through the episode, Roger Meyers is calling Marge a screwball. When letters by the mailtruck start arriving I love Alex Rocco's read of "Ladies and gentlemen, the screwballs have spoken."

• The first Itchy & Scratchy cartoon post-violence is just Itchy and Scratchy sitting in rocking chairs serving each other lemonade and commenting on how great friends they are. "Lemonade?" "Please."

• After the cartoon, Krusty threatens the audience: "Wasn't that funny boys and girls? Well? Wasn't it?"
• Michelangelo's David is arriving in New York, Springfield, and, if there's time, Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles.
• Helen Lovejoy: "I told you she was soft on full-frontal nudity."
• This is the last entry for #ElevenSeasons for the foreseeable future. I'm hoping to bring it back sometime in 2018 but with all the other things I am currently working on, keeping this going isn't feasible. Thanks for reading and I hope to be back with more Simpsons.