Plagiarism in Pop Culture: The Simpsons 1

Jonathan BaileySeptember 23, 2025

7 minutes read

Since I began the Plagiarism in Pop Culture series in April 2016, I have covered 44 different works (this will make 45). This has included dozens of TV shows, several films, a few songs and even one video game. I even did one edition of Star Trek: Voyager that focused on copyright, not plagiarism.

However, one show has been mysteriously absent from this list: The Simpsons.

Not only is it one of the longest-running shows of all time, but it also features one of the most famous examples of plagiarism in pop culture. However, that episode, episode 18 of season 7, pulls double duty. Entitled The Day the Violence Died, it not only discusses plagiarism issues but also explores the overlap between plagiarism and copyright.

So how does the episode, which first aired in March 1996, hold up nearly 30 years later?

It turns out, surprisingly well.

Content Warning: Spoilers for Season 7, Episode 18 of The Simpsons (The Day the Violence Died).

The Plot

The episode begins with Bart and Lisa enjoying a marathon of Itchy & Scratchy cartoons to celebrate the show’s 75th anniversary. At the end of the broadcast, they learn about a parade taking place tomorrow to honor the show, and they immediately drag their father, Homer, to help them secure a spot along the route.

In typical fashion, that goes comically awry, but the parade has bigger issues. It travels into “Bumtown” and is quickly chased off by an angry crowd. It’s there that Bart meets Chester J. Lampwick, a “bum” who claims to have created Itchy (the mouse).

To prove this, he produces a nitrite film canister that he claims has the first Itchy cartoon on it. Bart sources an outdated projector from the elementary school, and they watch the film. Though Bart is convinced, the film catches fire and burns up before they can show it to anyone else.

Bart lets Lampwick live with him, without telling the rest of his family. After failing to get compensation from the studio, the pair goes to Lionel Hutz, the local bad attorney. There, Hutz demands $1,000 to take the case and produces one of the most meme-able moments in the show’s history.

Lionel Hutz Esq
Works on Contingency?
No, Money Down!

Eventually, the rest of the family discovers Lampwick, and Bart convinces Homer to finance the lawsuit to get him out of the house.

Initially, the trial goes poorly for Lampwick as he has no proof. However, Bart remembers an early Itchy drawing in the local comic book store and, after getting more money from Homer, purchases it. He brings it to the court, and it shows that Lampwick drew the character in 1919 and gave it to Roger Meyers Sr.

Roger Meyers Jr., the current head of the studio, goes on a tirade about how plagiarism is at the core of animation. Still, the judge is unimpressed and awards Lampwick $800 billion, an amount that he says will likely be reduced on appeal. Lampwick goes on to buy a gold house and a rocket car with his winnings.

However, this bankrupts the studio and brings an end to Itchy and Scratchy. The show is replaced with a parody of Schoolhouse Rock, leaving Bart and Lisa despondent. They eventually find a copyright precedent that might help them, but before they can tell Meyers, he has already found another solution.

According to Meyers, he learned that the Post Office had based its design of Mr. ZIP on a character his dad created. As such, he received a “large cash settlement” and was able to reopen the studio.

However, he attributed the idea to two other kids, Lester and Eliza, who are clones of Bart and Lisa but drawn in the style of the original Simpsons shorts from The Tracy Ullman Show. The episode ends with Bart staring down his doppelganger outside.

Understanding the Plagiarism

If we ignore the legal issues and focus just on the plagiarism itself, the issue is actually very straightforward. Lampwick accuses Meyers Sr. of plagiarizing his character, Itchy, and making it half of the iconic duo.

Allegations like this are widespread across all different types of media. Musicians, filmmakers, authors, and artists all face allegations that they have stolen work from an earlier creator or collaborator.

However, it’s pretty much impossible to look at this episode in a vacuum. Not only does it focus more heavily on the legal side of things, but everything in this episode is a stand-in for someone (or something) else.

Most notably, Roger Meyers Sr. (and Jr.) are stand-ins for Walt Disney (and Walt Disney Jr.) This is obvious, as the “first” Itchy cartoon was Steamboat Itchy, a play on Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.

The episode was meant more as a comment on plagiarism in animation more broadly. This is highlighted in Meyers Jr., during the trial, rattles off several other famous examples of animated plagiarism. Those included:

The Flintstones is based on The Honeymooners.
Top Cat being a plagiarism of Sgt. Bilko.
Huckleberry Hound is similar to Andy Griffith.
Chief Wiggum (The Simpsons character) is voiced similarly to Edward G. Robinson.
Yogi Bear is similar to Art Carney.

The episode is right. Animation has a long history of drawing inspiration (and sometimes more) from other sources, particularly human actors and live-action shows.

However, it hits a bit differently when it comes from The Simpsons. The “Simpsons Already Did It” meme would begin just six years after this episode, in 2002, following the South Park episode with the same name. The Simpsons also played along, repeatedly calling out Family Guy and American Dad for plagiarism.

Family Guy and American Dad plagiarism images

To be clear, this seems to be in good fun. After all, the show called out its own similarities with Chief Wiggum. Still, rewatching this episode in 2025 felt very different. Although all the above examples of animation plagiarism (or homage) are well-known, it still feels strange to know what was in the show’s future.

The Legal Side of Things

Ultimately, this episode is really more about the copyright/legal wrangling than it is the plagiarism. To that end, Legal Eagle has a great video discussing it, which I highly recommend.

However, the video missed a couple of points.

First off, the biggest obstacle to Lampwick’s case wouldn’t likely have been proving his case; it would have been the statute of limitations. Copyright law typically has a three-year statute of limitations. According to a recent Supreme Court decision, the clock starts ticking when the plaintiff becomes aware that they’ve been infringed.

However, Lampwick was aware of the alleged infringement in 1928 at the latest. Justifying a 68-year delay in filing is a tall order. However, even if he were allowed to move forward, he would have been able to collect damages only from the last three years.

That raises another point: the $800 billion damages award is, in a word, ludicrous. Anthropic’s $1.5 billion proposed settlement is already massive in 2025. To make matters worse, $800 billion in 1996 would be worth approximately $1.6 trillion today. Obviously, this is intended for comedic effect and isn’t meant to be taken seriously; however, it is interesting that it almost equals Mexico’s GDP.

Finally, there’s no way that the studio would have paid that based on one judge’s ruling (especially when the judge himself said it would likely be reduced on appeal). Cases of this magnitude can take years, even decades, and often involve multiple appeals.

However, there’s another issue, which Legal Eagle does address. If Lampwick created his work in 1919, it was in the public domain by the time the episode aired. Even if he renewed the work, it would have lapsed into the public domain several years prior. Although this would have little bearing on the lawsuit, since the alleged infringement occurred while the work was (possibly) protected, it again raises the question of the statute of limitations.

Still, future royalties, something Lampwick was supposedly owed, would not have been on the table.

In short, the case had numerous problems beyond a lack of physical evidence. It’s unlikely that it would have been successful at all, let alone for over a trillion dollars worth of damages.

Bottom Line

Ultimately, it’s difficult to fault The Simpsons for its inaccuracies in either area. The things that the show got wrong were clearly in service of either the jokes or the story. These were, most likely, deliberate changes in service of the episode.

To that end, the show wasn’t trying to teach a moral about plagiarism or copyright infringement. It was trying to tell a funny story that lampooned animation’s long history of “borrowing” ideas from other sources.

That I can say it does well. It highlights some of the animations’ more brazen copycat moments, including taking a shot at itself, and takes some pretty big swings at Disney.

But Disney would actually get the last laugh. Less than a year after this episode came out, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was introduced in Congress. Often referred to derisively as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” the bill ensured that Steamboat Willie would enjoy an additional 20 years of copyright protection.

To be clear, Disney’s role in this law is often overstated, and its passage actually brought the US equal to many other nations in its copyright term. Still, the bill is commonly associated with Disney. Ultimately, Steamboat Willie would enter the public domain on January 1, 2024.

Still, the episode did what The Simpsons has done best. It exaggerated for comedic effect and told a story that could not exist in our universe. Lampwick’s story could not happen in our world, but that’s not the point. The Simpsons never hinged on realism and rarely takes a moral or educational stance.

So take this episode for what it is, a silly parody of plagiarism and copyright, not a serious analysis of either.

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