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| "I have to go now. My planet needs me." Note: Poochie died on the way back to his home planet. |
As it turns out, nobody is bothering to watch Itchy & Scratchy anymore despite the show's continuing quality. Roger Meyers Jr. is tasked with finding a way to get it ratings or have it removed from Krusty's show. At a focus group featuring kids, he learns that the only 'real' problem with Itchy & Scratchy is that its characters just do not have the same impact as they used to. Upon this realization, Meyers comes up with a solution: adding a new character.
A network executive demands the new character, a dog, to be in-your-face 90s extreme with an attitude because apparently that's what the kids want. The dog, lethargically named "Poochie" starts making waves in the news. As Lisa laments the purposes of these new characters, Roy pops into the scene to greet the family, having known Roy for some time somehow. The kids suggest Homer try out to be Poochie's voice actor, given Homer has a humorous voice. Homer decides to try out and ultimately wins the gig after showing some attitude. The hype for the new cartoon gets pretty big, but when the cartoon premieres, it just features Poochie doing extreme 90s things like rapping, dunking a basketball and that oh-so-lovable 90s slang, while showcasing no violence at all. The episode is nearly universally hated, with only Homer defending it given that he voices the character who is the root of the hate.
Homer attempts to solve the problem by suggesting ways to make Poochie better, but the executives have only one option to fix the cartoon: killing Poochie off. At the voice read, Homer refuses to read his line which calls for Poochie to beg for death. Instead, with the help of the VA for Itchy & Scratchy, Homer reads a new set of lines, apologizing to viewers, admitting that Poochie got off on the wrong foot, and requests that they give Poochie one more chance. The read gains the approval of everyone in the room, including Meyers. However, later on, it seems the network executives get the last word, as the new episode, rather hastily edited, has Poochie 'leaving' for his home planet, but dying on the way. With a lawyer present, Poochie is not only dead, but legally unable to return to the cartoon at a later point (though in later Simpsons episodes he comes back anyway). Homer, who never got paid for the work, laments the loss, as it seems like the world wasn't quite ready for Poochie - or Roy, as he takes his leave to live in an apartment with "two sexy ladies". The cartoons return to normal, but again nobody watches them anyway.
Quick Review
A rather pointed look into the realm of cartoon decision making and perhaps an ominous predictor of what's to come, this episode still has a lot of hilarity to be had with its various parodies and sleights and such, so ends it ends up being a quality episode overall.
Final Score: 9.1
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