‘Simpsons’ Showrunner Details How the Poochie Episode of ‘The Simpsons’ Was Barely Fictionalized
The iconic Season Eight Simpsons episode “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie” show was more than just inspired by on true events — it featured the facsimiles of real writers.
Most fans of The Simpsons know that the show’s most meta episode was one giant send-up of the state of critical discourse and network notes about The Simpsons nearly a decade into its run. Simpsons legend David X. Cohen conceived “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie” show as a window from which the audience could see what it’s like to work on a hit show that’s already several seasons deep and, in the estimation of especially critical fans and reviewers, nearing the end of its exceptional run.
Cohen based the central conceit of the “worst episode ever” – how the TV executives in charge of The Itchy & Scratchy Show try to force an unwanted new third character into the cast to boost struggling ratings – on an actual suggestion from the suits at Fox that urged the Simpsons writers to add a new character to the show out of the fear that the eight-year-old series was losing it’s “wow” factor.
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Morning, Roy!
Legendary writer and producer Josh Weinstein was The Simpsons’ co-showrunner along with his creative partner Bill Oakley when Fox made the push for a new Simpson, and he recently talked with the Simpsons fandom on Twitter about certain scenes were especially true-to-life — one writer really liked the speedo man.
The staying power of “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show” in conversations about the best Simpsons episodes of all time hinges on this exact proactive paradigm that Weinstein described. Even if the vast majority of Simpsons fans have never been anywhere near a TV writers’ room, we’ve all seen the countless results of stupid, self-important network executives pushing a branding gimmick onto a room of nonplussed creatives who have no choice but to toe the company line.
Thankfully, Oakley and Weinstein’s reign on The Simpsons escaped the trap of a Poochie-type, shark-jumping moment forced by antsy suits, and The Simpsons put out some of its most intelligent and incisive material under their watch. Unfortunately, however, that reign came to an end after the finale of The Simpsons Season Eight when the controversial Mike Scully replaced Oakley and Weinstein as showrunner — their planet needed them, I guess.
