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| “ | Scratchy: Why are you laughing? Itchy: Hey, they're laughing at your pain! Scratchy: That's mean. Itchy: Let's teach 'em a lesson! |
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| ~ Itchy to Scratchy in Treehouse of Horror IX, The Terror of Tiny Toon |
Itchy is the titular main antagonist in The Itchy & Scratchy Show, a parody of Tom and Jerry, a widely popular cartoon within The Simpsons' world. He is a dangerous and sadistic anthropomorphic blue mouse who loves torturing the heroic Scratchy, always killing him in some gruesome way without provocation in every episode.
He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, who also voices Donald Trump and the Blue-Haired Lawyer in the same series.
Biography[]
The Simpsons[]
Itchy is a parody of Jerry the Mouse, his more brutal elements are actually based off another more obscure cat and mouse cartoon series, Herman & Katnip. In contrast to Jerry who usually engages in mutual comic mischief with Tom, Itchy is instead depicted as a demented serial killer who kills the innocent Scratchy for no reason outside of sadistic amusement. Even compared to Jerry at his worst, Itchy still shows himself as far more sadistic and evil.
Even in cartoons, where both are fighting, Itchy is, outside of the earliest cartoons, always portrayed as instigator and the evil side of the conflict. One such example being when Itchy and Scratchy are leading armies against each other, while Scratchy cries "freedom", Itchy cries "tyranny."
When Scratchy gets the advantage, Itchy is often shown as a coward who will take advantage of Scratchy's mercy towards him, by dishonorably backstabbing him.
While Scratchy is Itchy's favorite victim, Itchy kills others such as blowing up a dog general with a nuke, Itchy has even killed kids, murdering Scratchy's young children in many episodes like running over Scratchy Jr with a combine or blowing up Scratchy's daughter at her father's funeral.
In The Simpsons Movie, a movie of Itchy & Scratchy is being played, where both Itchy and Scratchy are astronauts who reached the Moon. While Scratchy says that he comes in peace for cats and mice everywhere, Itchy suddenly impales him with his flag pole several times, then whacks him with the pole and once Scratchy is down, Itchy cracks Scratchy's helmet, taking away his oxygen and leaves him on the Moon to die. When he goes back to Earth, he lies to the public that he did everything to save Scratchy, although he actually did the opposite, and ends up becoming president of USA and being hailed as a hero. While looking into the Moon with a telescope, he sees that Scratchy is still alive and willing to tell everyone the truth. Itchy then shoots a salvo of rockets towards the Moon to kill Scratchy, succeeding at this murder and saving himself from being exposed.
Scratchy was at one point able to tie Itchy to several dynamite and Scratchy escaped in a taxi car. It is untold what actually happened, but according to a Simpsons book, it was said that Scratchy never killed Itchy even once although he nearly did, so it was especially possible that Itchy was able to survive the near-death experience.
In the comics based on Itchy & Scratchy, Itchy is if anything even more murderous and sadistic in tormenting Scratchy.
Grand Theft Scratchy[]
Itchy also appeared in the videogame The Simpsons Game, where he is one of the characters in the game of the day in Springfield: Grand Theft Scratchy (a parody of the Grand Theft Auto franchise). He is a common enemy in one of the missions, where he appears as gangster or pimp.
Trivia[]
- Despite his sadistic nature, a few episodes of The Simpsons show that Itchy is actually an actor who is "good friends" with Scratchy's actor outside of the show. This references how Tom and Jerry's relationship remain ambiguous – they are either friends or nemeses-turned allies.
- Plenty of episodes show Itchy and Scratchy on seemingly friendly terms before Itchy reveals his evil nature.
- Speaking of Tom & Jerry, Itchy was mistaken to be a obvious parody of Jerry Mouse, when in actuality, he's actually a parody of Herman from Herman and Katnip (which the show is a shameless Tom & Jerry clone that was infamous for Herman inflicting lots of overexaggerated and over-the-top violence targeted at Katnip himself).
- He's also a parody of Squeak from the Italian comic book Squeak the Mouse.
