"Untitled Itchy & Scratchy cartoon (focus group)"
ItchyScratchyPlayPool.jpg
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The Itchy & Scratchy Show Episode Information
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An untitled Itchy & Scratchy cartoon was shown to several Springfield kids as part of a focus group study in "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show". Ratings of The Itchy & Scratchy Show were sagging, so executives from the show had the kids watch several cartoon clips in order to find out what kids liked and in turn find out what they needed to do to improve the show. The focus group consisted of Bart Simpson, Lisa Simpson, Milhouse van Houten, Ralph Wiggum. Nelson Muntz and an unnamed girl about Bart's age.
Plot
Itchy and Scratchy are playing pool. Itchy does a jump shot with the cue ball and hits Scratchy in the face, knocking out his eyes. Scratchy feels around the table for his eyes and finds the "6" and "9" pool balls, which he places into his eye sockets.
Reactions
The kids found the cartoon to be very funny, but they liked
everything they were shown. This presented the
I&S executives with a problem: with no information about what kids didn't like, they had no idea what changes they needed to make to the show.
Roger Meyers, Jr., who was in the observation booth, became frustrated and turned on the lights, revealing himself to the kids. He then yelled at the kids to "Just tell me what's wrong with the freakin' show!" Lisa then explained that there was nothing wrong with the show, but perhaps the characters were losing some impact after so many years. That gave Meyers the idea of introducing a new character, which turned out to be
Poochie.
Appearances