0011 - Itchy (Patreon)

In recent years I've become an amateur animation historian, which is basically a pretentious way of saying that I put old cartoon shorts on when I've had a couple of glasses of wine. The more I dig in, the more obsessed I am with finding out the history of Disney or Warner Bros or Fleischer Studios or whoever. The Looney Tunes DVDs have audio commentaries; I'm the nerd who listens to them.

What always interests me is when some nugget of information clicks into place into something I've been familiar with for years, and that often happens with Itchy and <character #0012, not revealed yet>. Most obviously they are Tom and Jerry (although Tom and Jerry were never this violent), but then second most obviously they are the Simpsons exploration of Disney's history and legacy. Examples of this are Itchy and Scratchy Land, Steamboat Itchy, and Chester J. Lampwick* being a stand in for Ub Iwerks.

There's something very wholesome about this to me, a bunch of animators making a love letter to their craft. People using their time making a cartoon to poke gentle fun at the cartoons that came before, while forging a path forward. Simpsons has of course become a cornerstone of animation history in its own right, and many of its alumni have gone on to define animation in other ways. Brad Bird went on to direct Pixar movies, Rich Moore directed several Disney movies, and David Silverman directed the Oscar nominated Maggie short "Playdate with Destiny".

Of course, these Disney own the show, which complicates things. It's safe to say we probably won't be seeing Itchy and <character #0012, not revealed yet> as a stand in for making fun of Disney much more.

* I'm gonna make a vague prediction here and say that Chester J. Lampwick is going to be character #1364. Let's all revisit this post when we get to him.

This post is part of my "Every Simpsons Character Ever" series. For a list of my rules in this project, click here.