The Day the Violence Died (S07, E18-146)

Milhouse: "Look out, Itchy!  He's Irish!"

Plot Summary
With the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon celebrating its 75th anniversary, a parade is to be held.  Homer, Bart and Lisa try to get there early, as in the night before kind of early, and though they get a chance to see some I&S related memorabilia, they oversleep and miss a big chunk of the parade anyway.  Bart separates from the group and joins the parade directly, which brings cheer for some reason.  The parade, which was poorly routed, goes into Bumtown, and speeds off quickly.  Bart is unable to keep pace and catches a bum throwing tomatoes at the parade.  Bart confronts the bum over Itchy & Scratchy, but the bum reveals that he was actually the one to create Itchy, a character that Roger Meyers Sr. stole, and that he invented cartoon violence in general.  He even has a old movie to prove it: "Manhattan Madness", a film made in 1919 where Itchy kills an Irishman and President Teddy Roosevelt.  As Bart decides that this bum, Chester J. Lampwick, is legit, the movie reel falls apart and crumbles to ash, destroying the last known proof of Chester's work.

Regardless, Bart is determined for Chester to get what's his.  Talking to the head of I&S Studios now, Roger Meyers Jr., does not help, so Bart and Chester take them to court, Bart getting the $1000 fee from Homer.  As expected, not having the film makes Chester's case near impossible to prove, but then Bart remembers a frame of Itchy that he saw the night before the parade that looked just like the Itchy in Chester's film.  He borrows $750 rather quickly from Homer to buy the frame of Itchy, and within it reveals that Chester did indeed draw that Itchy back in 1919.  Chester wins the case, and gets $800 billion in restitution (which was probably less after appeals).  However, the case also leaves I&S Studios bankrupt, essentially killing Itchy & Scratchy, much to Bart's unprepared shock.

After being unable to deal with the replacement edu-tainment cartoon, Bart & Lisa decide to try and get I&S back.  However, Roger Meyers Jr. has no money, and nobody they can talk to is either able or willing to spend money to get the cartoons back.  They're about to give up and tackle another problem (getting Apu out of jail for public indecency), when Marge gives them a confidence booster.  They finally find a 'perfect' solution to the I&S problem, but when they go to present it to Meyers, they find that they've been beaten to the punch.

It turns out that the post office's character "Mr. Zip" is a knockoff of Meyer Sr.'s actual original character "Manic Mailman", and as a result the government gives Meyers a huge cash settlement, allowing I&S Studios to go back into business.  The people responsible for finding this?  A young boy and girl by the names of Lester & Eliza, who would look suspiciously like Bart & Lisa if this had been animated eight or nine years prior.  They also solved Apu's nudity problem, and also reunited Krusty with his estranged wife, a problem Bart & Lisa weren't even aware of!  Though Bart and Lisa are happy Itchy & Scratchy are back, they can't shake that unsettling feeling of being beaten to the punch by a seemingly unrelated pair of kids, especially when Lester rolls on by on his skateboard giving Bart a suspicious look.

Quick Review
I really loved the way this episode ended.  Throwing in Lester and Eliza, most notably their appearances, was well devised and brought something new to the table, not that the "Bart and Lisa solve everything" angle had gotten tired yet.  Other things such as Lionel Hutz's false advertising (Works on Contingency?  No, money down!), Homer's seemingly endless supply of money and the many cartoon parodies, such as the ones from Fritz the Cat and Schoolhouse Rock, really give the episode some shine as well.  Its one of Season 7's best episodes.

Final Score: 9.8