The Worker & Parasite Show


 * Worker and Parasite redirects here. For the comic, see Presenting Eastern Europe's Favorite Cartoon Cat and Mouse Team: Worker and Parasite!

The Worker & Parasite Show was a cartoon. When the popular cartoon Itchy and Scratchy, featuring a very violent cat and mouse, leaves The Krusty the Clown Show for Krusty's new competitor, Gabbo, "Eastern Europe's favorite cat and mouse team, Worker and Parasite," was a cheap replacement. According to the title screen, it was made in 1959.

History
The cartoon opened with some Cyrillic-looking credits, which account for nothing in real Cyrillic. The cartoon itself was quite unintelligible, featuring a crudely drawn cat and mouse chattering incoherently and bouncing around to the tune of random, depressing background music. Worker and Parasite are first seen in a factory (where a wrench and sickle are visible as well); they then move in front of a line of identical, miserable-looking peasants who are lining up for supplies of some sort, and then within a nest of squiggly lines, possibly meant to represent a pit of snakes. The cartoon concludes with an out of tune tone and with the screen reading "ENDUT! HOCH HECH!" Afterwards, Krusty's on-air response (before a vacant studio) was shocked silence, a limp cigarette hanging from his mouth, then promptly saying, "What the hell was that?!"

Behind the Laughter

 * Simpsons creator Matt Groening maintains that their appearance on the show is one of the best parts of the series.
 * The title of the cartoon Worker and Parasite is a reference to social parasitism, which was a crime in the Soviet Union.
 * There has been some speculation as to what "Endut! Hoch Hech!" means. The Season 4 DVD audio commentary for the episode however claims that writer John Swartzwelder had no intended meaning for the phrase in question.
 * Worker and Parasite has not appeared on the show since, but they have made a few appearances in Simpsons comic books, this time speaking somewhat intelligible English.
 * In one comic, the duos dialogue is said to be "translated from the Slovakian."
 * The cartoon could be a reference to the real-life Tom and Jerry. The original cartoons produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera ended in 1958 with the closure of MGM cartoon studio, and after that, Tom and Jerry was outsourced to the then-communist Czechoslovakia in 1961 under animator Gene Deitch. 13 cartoons were made between 1961 to 1962. They were criticized for their poor quality and rather disturbing nature, featuring badly done sound effects and animation and having a more realistic feel to the violence.