Westworld: How The Simpsons Episode Compares To The Sci-Fi Classic
In its many years on the air, The Simpsons has spoofed countless iconic movies and TV shows, but how does the show’s Westworld parody compare to the original '70s sci-fi movie? After over 30 years on the air, The Simpsons has had the opportunity to spoof pretty much every popular piece of media from the last four decades (and earlier). The anarchic family sitcom usually sticks to parodying specific scenes and moments from famous movies and television shows, with full-scale spoofs limited to The Simpsons’ annual "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween specials where the writers can spend a whole episode mocking whatever is popular with viewers.
However, on occasion, The Simpsons will devote an entire episode to recreating a famous movie from start-to-finish, whether it’s the inspired shot-for-shot parody of Scorsese’s Cape Fear seen in The Simpsons’ "Cape Feare," or the later Lord of the Flies riff "Das Bus." These rare full-episode parodies have given rise to some fan-favorite installments of The Simpsons over the years. One of the show's most fan-preferred parodies is season 6's "Itchy & Scratchy Land," which spoofs the classic sci-fi horror Westworld from Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton.
Recently remade as a glossy, big-budget sci-fi spectacular for HBO, Westworld tells the story of an android-inhabited theme park populated with placid, lifelike robots that guests are encouraged to enact their violent fantasies on. Of course, this being a Michael Crichton story about a theme park, most readers can probably guess that it's not long before things go south for visitors. Sure enough, soon after the characters are introduced, the robots malfunction and start terrorizing the park’s inhabitants in a classic case of a futuristic bit of tech turning on its creators. The story is retold beat-for-beat in The Simpsons’ "Itchy & Scratchy Land" save for some minor modifications, with the cartoon version of events being understandably lighter and involving less robot assault. So, how do the two compare?
In both Westworld and The Simpsons' "Itchy & Scratchy Land," the theme park is referred to as “the Theme Park of the Future,” the first of the episode's many nods to Crichton's foreboding sci-fi classic. But of course, this being The Simpsons, only the cartoon version of the theme park has an almost-empty European sister park. in a not-so-subtle dig at Disneyland Paris. Despite the theme park's slogan being a Westworld reference, the helicopter that brings the eponymous Springfield family into the park and has its logo emblazoned on its side is a reference to another, more famous movie adaptation of Crichton’s work, Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (which in turn went on to receive a parody in Rick & Morty.)
When the aforementioned helicopter’s pilot welcomes the Simpson family to the titular park and adds “where nothing can possib-ly go wrong…”, the uninitiated viewer might think that the joke is just how ironic it is that the pilot mispronounced such a foreboding comment, thus proving that things could go wrong. However, fans of Westworld will remember that this seemingly naive statement is also actually the original movie’s poster tagline, with the Yul Brynner film promising that everything was perfectly safe right up until it really, really wasn’t. It’s a subtle nod and the type of joke that works whether or not the viewer registered the references, similar to The Simpsons’ ludicrous recreation of Cape Fear’s genuinely unsettling cinema scene.
In the original Westworld, the armed androids of the titular attraction have heat sensors in their guns which stop them from shooting at any human target (at least initially). Similarly, it is established early on in The Simpsons’ Westworld parody that the Itchy and Scratchy androids of the theme park have sensors built into them which ensure they can’t attack humans. Not only is this recreated from the original movie, but Homer’s taunting of a robot under the assumption that it can’t touch him, only for him to discover that the android has gone haywire and he’s very much in danger, is taken verbatim from Westworld (although the scene plays out a lot scarier in its non-Simpsons iteration).
It's important to note that the patrons of Itchy & Scratchy Land don't assault The Simpsons’ Itchy and Scratchy androids with the same malignancy that Westworld's inhabitants attack that movie's robots. After all, unlike Crichton, the anarchic animated sitcom isn't trying to make a serious point about humanity amorally abusing technology. But other than that change, how do the two compare in terms of story? Well, unlike the parodies of horror classics featured in some of The Simpsons’ most beloved "Treehouse of Horror" shorts, "Itchy & Scratchy Land" does need to change some details from Westworld’s original set up to accommodate the characters. For one thing, the main characters of the original Westworld are two adult men rather than a family, meaning the movie can get away with a lot more bloodshed. For another, not everyone makes it out of the movie alive, whereas the Simpsons unsurprisingly emerge unscathed (since the family members usually only die in the "Treehouse of Horrors" episodes). Also, the Simpsons manage to overpower the androids through the flash photography of cameras making them go haywire, an element that’s absent in the original Westworld (wherein there’s no trick to saving yourself from the androids, and the ostensible hero himself barely makes it out alive).
The flash photography trick seems to be a reference to Gremlins, while the bare steel design of the Itchy and Scratchy robots (as well as their red eyes) are reminiscent of the titular character of the Terminator. The denizens of the original Westworld aren't as robotic in appearance, but instead are unsettling precisely because of how lifelike they appear to the naked eye. The Simpsons' sci-fi horror parody also doesn’t bother with recreating the western aesthetic of Westworld, but to be fair to the series, the original movie isn’t limited to one setting either. Although viewers see little of them onscreen, Westworld’s theme park also has ancient Roman and Medieval themed sections, whereas Itchy and Scratchy Land as the so-called "Violentest Place on Earth" instead boasts more descriptive subsections, such as the charming “Searing Gas Pain Land.” Although the episode mostly parodies Westworld, Frink’s off-the-cuff remark that “elemental chaos theory” is responsible for the robots going haywire is another reference to Jurassic Park, while Moleman’s attempts to evade a flock of wild birds is a Hitchcock parody. The episode, which he writers loved working on as it gave them a chance to script some violent and suspenseful scenes for the Simpson family, also finds time to cram in parodies of both Pinocchio and Fantasia in case there was any uncertainty about the fact that the episode is taking satirical aim at Disney.
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