The Day the Violence Died

When I re-watched season 7 on DVD, I found a few episodes were exceptional, but a lot of others- maybe most others- were disappointing, often not quite what I remembered them to be. The Day the Violence Died is one of the lackluster episodes. It's about Bart discovering that Itchy of the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons is a stolen character, and the real creator of the cartoon mouse is a homeless, impoverished old man. Bart helps him get the credit and money he deserves- and then some. The problem is that this bankrupts the company that makes the cartoons.

I think the main problem with this episode is that it has no purpose to exist. We didn't need an episode about Itchy's origins. He's such a minor character that it just wasn't worth expanding on the (funny and brief) origin story we already had from season 4's Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie. Moreover, the creator/bum isn't an interesting enough character to make the episode worthwhile. Compared to the last colourful Itchy and Scratchy episode, about the amusement park, copyright concerns seem dull. We also have the bum living with the Simpsons for a while- haven't they already taken enough people in? Think Otto and Apu. The ending with Lester and Eliza also doesn't work for me, maybe because it was a bit unsubtle.

But there is some good in this episode. The Itchy and Scratchy cartoon at the beginning is fine, and the joke about taking the gun is good. But above all else, the song about a constitutional amendment on flag burning is great. Even if the real life educational cartoons that inspired this joke are one day forgotten, the joke still captures the flag burning debate in a clever and humorous way. But it probably could have been done in another episode.