The Simpson's Movie

It was a great movie. Some of those with whom I shared an audience may have regarded my laughter as excessive -- but hey, if you don't want to expose yourself to the reactions of your fellow audience members you'll have to wait until its a DVD.

The opening scene involves "Itchy and Scratchy." As all true Simpson-philes know, this is a send-up of Tom & Jerry. Itchy is an ultra-violent mouse through whose schemes the cat, Scratchy, always meets a horribly gruesome end. The scene on the moon is true to form.

By making Itchy & Scratchy a cartoon-within-a-cartoon, the creators of The Simpsons long ago gave their program, if I may say so without sounding pretentious, an Id. It's so off-the-wall that even the events of dysfunctional "Springfield" seem normal, seem the sort of world an "ego" can inhabit and of which a "superego" can disapprove. After all, the impulse to violence, the cat-and-mouse violence, is suppressed by virtue of being unreal FOR that world. Thanatos is under control. Eros is relegated to Alaska.

Okay, that does sound pretentious. Just go see the movie-rino, or Flanders will adopt you. ARRRGH!