The best nine episodes of the Itchy and Scratchy show, as selected by the writers of The Simpsons

It must have been nearly as hard as trying to come up with the best nine episodes of The Simpsons itself.

Conor Heneghan

The best nine episodes of the Itchy and Scratchy show, as selected by the writers of The Simpsons

It must have been nearly as hard as trying to come up with the best nine episodes of The Simpsons itself.

One of the many elements that made The Simpsons arguably the greatest TV show of all time was that it contained a number of fictional TV shows that could realistically have worked as shows on their own. McGarnagle, for example, or McBain (every episode of which was ingeniously cobbled together to make one movie short) and we won’t heard a bad word said about Knightboat (‘there’s always a canal… or an inlet or a fjord’).

The best of the lot, of course, was The Itchy and Scratchy show, of which there are approximately 100 episodes contained within the 500 + episodes of The Simpsons to date.

Having no doubt fought and bitten – and fought and fought and bitten – quite a lot over the final list, The Simpsons writing staff, led by long-time show runner Al Jean, have selected their nine favourite episodes of The Itchy and Scratchy show to date for Vulture and the final list contains plenty of classic I&S episodes that will instantly ring a bell with die-hard Simpsons fans.

Jean and the staff didn’t go as far to select their favourite episode – and frankly, we’re a little disappointed that there was no mention for the Russian version of the show, Worker and Parasite, but if pushed, we’d have to go with the clip below as our personal favourite…