The Itchy & Scratchy Show is a Show Within a Show WITHIN a Show on The Simpsonsnote which itself was a Show Within a Show, from The Tracy Ullman Show. It passes itself off as a cat and mouse chase, based on the old cartoon shorts of Tom And Jerry and Herman and Katnip (mostly the latter). The cartoons are usually aired during The Krusty The Klown Show.The show was part of The Simpsons since the first season, including episodes directly involving the company that makes the cartoons. They even got their own Video Game or two as well as a short comic book series (which crossed over with BartMan in the When Bongos Collide story).
steamrollers an immobile Scratchy in a King's Speech Parody.
Amusing Injuries: Especially to the people in "The Simpsons" universe. For us as viewers, the violence is horribly over-the-top and especially unfit for a children's audience.
Art Shift: The Itchy and Scratchy cartoon "Spherical on 34th Street" is animated differently.
"Worker and Parasite".
The "Marge-approved" shorts aired during "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" had a subtle art shift. Itchy and Scratchy's eyes are drawn with a noticeably "softer" feel.
The aforementioned wartime cartoon is animated in a style reminiscent of 1940s cartoons.
Ax Crazy: Itchy. In fact, Itchy is a mixture of Ax Crazy and sociopath, sadistically killing Scratchy in various painful ways.
Autocannibalism: In one short, Itchy (disguised as a restaurant employee) serves Scratchy his own belly. The unknowing Scratchy's attempt at eating it only results in the bits of it he swallows popping back out of a hole cut in it.
Early Installment Weirdness: "Manhattan Madness", a cartoon created entirely by Chester J. Lampwick, only features Itchy and had him visiting Manhattan to attack people. "That Happy Cat", meanwhile, is a solo Scratchy effort by Roger Myers Sr. with no plot whatsoever. Then Myers stole Itchy and his formula and used them in "Steamboat Itchy", and the rest is history.
Fur and Loathing: Parodied. Itchy steals Scratchy's skin, fur and all. When Scratchy gets it back, and tries to put it back on, fur protesters beat him up for wearing his own fur.
Krusty: Wow! They'll never let us show that again, not in a million years!
Also, diePod Slaylist, which is from season 20, but is not listed in the ultimate episode guide of the Simpsons seasons 1-20.
Moral Myopia: Itchy constantly abuses, torments, mutilates, and murders Scratchy and enjoys it all the while. But if someone else takes enjoyment out of watching Scratchy be in pain, he gets all up in arms.
The Movie: In-story, the show had a movie released in theaters and either had a sequel or rerelease at the start of The Simpsons Movie.
Mr. Alt Disney: Itchy and Scratchy's inventornote well, Scratchy's inventor at least, Roger Myers Sr, is a thinly disguised spoof of Walt Disney with his theme park and the urban legends surrounding his antisemitism and being cryogenically frozen after his death.
Overly Long Tongue: Scratchy's isn't so much long as stretchy; at one point it gets tied to a rocket which reaches the moon before Scratchy even notices.
Plagiarism: In "The Day The Violence Died" it turns out that the character Itchy wasn't thought up by Roger Myers Sr, but by Chester J. Lampwick.
Put on a Bus: Poochie. "I must go now, my planet needs me"
Bus Crash: "Poochie died on the way back to his home planet."
Though that doesn't stop him from showing up for Scratchy's funeral in another episode.
Re Tool: Into a Lighter and Softer show. It was changed back when Marge Simpson, who started the protests against the show's violence, had a wholly different opinion on Michelangelo's David (which was on a coast-to-coast tour of the United States at the time) from the rest of the protesters.
The first cartoon in 1928, "That Happy Cat" only showed Scratchy walking down the street and whistling. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't a success, and the series only caught on when Itchy and violence were added (read: stolen from Chester J. Lampwick).
Shoo Out The New Guy: A character named "Poochie", voiced by Homer, was introduced, gelled horribly with the show, and was dumped hastily out of the show.
Shoot The Television: The short "Little Barbershop of Horrors", "written" by Abraham Simpson, ends with Scratchy's head (now just a skull) going through a ceiling and into Elvis Presley's television set. Elvis promptly produces a revolver and shoots Scratchy's skull through the TV.
Elvis: Aww, this show ain't no good! *BANG!*
Shout Out: Many, to various classic cartoons. A notiable one is Itchy having the subtitle of The Lucky Mouse in his first, lost cartoon, referring of course to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
Take That: In response to Marge Simpson's protests on the show, there was an episode featuring a squirrel with Marge's blueBeehive Hairdo trying to break off Itchy and Scratchy's fighting... only to get killed by them.
Roger Myers Sr is a very unflattering portrayal of Walt Disney. The backstory of the I&S studio is a mishmash of conspiracy theories about the Disney Company.
Team Rocket Wins: The 'lost' episode where Scrachy finally gets revenge on Itchy by running him down with a combine harvester.
A storyboarded episode had Itchy steal Scratchy's pie, so Scratchy threw him in a vat of acid. Unfortunately, this was during a massive censorship push, so if they went with Marge's suggestion, Itchy would have shared the pie. Which he stole.
"Burning Down The Mouse" is apparently the only aired episode where Scratchy wins, by blowing Itchy up with a large arsenal of explosives. Unfortunately, the viewers never get to see the end, because one of Homer's college roommates who are crashing at his house unplugs the TV and doesn't plug it back in until it's over, where the TV just turns back on in time to see a huge mushroom cloud and "The End" superimposed over the shot (followed by Krusty declaring that "They'll never let us air that again! Not in a million years!").
Vitriolic Best Buds: Scratchy continues to hang around with Itchy, regardless of the constant attacks.
Wartime Cartoon: In one episode, we see a clip of an untitled WWII-era short, where a very Tom And Jerry-esque Itchy and Scratchy team up to torment and kill Hitler. Immediately afterwards, Itchy turns on Scratchy and cuts his head off, joined by FDR to kick the bodies.
Roger Myers, Sr.'s other wartime contribution, "Nazi Supermen are Our Superiors", was not as well received.
William Telling: Itchy does it to Scratchy once. He hits the apple, but the arrow punctures a hole into the large tank of carbolic acid that Scratchy was standing right next to.
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