Itchy & Scratchy Land

"Itchy & Scratchy Land" is the fourth episode of The Simpsons' sixth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 2, 1994. Wanting a perfect family vacation, the Simpson family visits Itchy & Scratchy Land. It was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Wes Archer.

Bart and Lisa see a commercial for an amusement park named Itchy & Scratchy Land, and immediately want to visit it. However, Marge has already booked a family vacation to a bird sanctuary, but after revealing that the theme park has an area for adults, Bart and Lisa win their parents over.

Although going well, the family's vacation is ruined when Bart launches a stink bomb into an actor's Itchy suit and is arrested by park security. When Bart arrives in a cell, he finds Homer, who is in there for kicking another Itchy character.

Meanwhile, all the Itchy and Scratchy robots go rogue and begin attacking humans. Bart and Homer are released and just as Marge is lecturing them, all power is cut and a horde of Itchy and Scratchy robots advance towards them. One of the park employees refuses to let them escape on the helicopter with them due to Homer and Bart's misdeeds at the park. Homer frantically throws everything he can at them and discovers that the flash of a camera short circuits the robots' systems. The Simpsons then grab dozens of cameras from a closed gift shop and defeat the entire Itchy & Scratchy army. The family is thanked for saving the park and agree that it was their best vacation ever.

"Itchy & Scratchy Land", written by the entire writing team but credited to John Swartzwelder, was a very difficult episode to produce. It involved creating an entirely new environment, which meant large amounts of writing and all new sets. At the time that the episode was produced, new, more stringent censorship laws had been put in place. As a result, the Fox network tried to stop the writers from including Itchy & Scratchy cartoons in episodes. In response, the writers created this episode, which they decided would be as violent as possible. The network threatened that if the episode was produced, they would cut the Itchy & Scratchy parts out themselves, but relented when showrunner David Mirkin threatened to tell the media. The writers nevertheless promised to try not to overdo the violence.