| “ | Prone to extreme violence from flash photography. Whatever that is. | „ |
| ~ The message after unlocking the Itchy & Scratchy Bots in The Simpsons: Tapped Out. |
The Itchy & Scratchy Bots are the main antagonists of the The Simpsons season 6 episode, "Itchy & Scratchy Land". They were a group of animatronics built in the likeness of Itchy and Scratchy to perform in the Itchy & Scratchy Land parade. However, after being exposed to flash photography, the robots turned on their engineers and started a riot in the park, attempting to kill the Simpsons family.
Biography[]
When the Simpsons are Itchy & Scratchy Land, Homer notions the rest of the family to watch a parade that is currently happening. Here, several robots are seen attacking each other with a variety of weapons, drizzling blood onto the park guests to their amusement. When Marge objects about the violence, a park employee informs her about their latest animatronics having sensors so that they only attack each other and not humans. This is soon put into play when an Itchy Bot glances at a Scratchy Bot to kill but upon looking at the Simpsons is programmed to not harm them, instead tipping its head to them while revealing its circuits inside.
Later when another parade is happening, Cletus takes a picture of a Scratchy Bot, causing it to short circuit, and go off course, while the same employee from earlier enforces him not to bring any flash photography. The Scratchy Bot soon makes its way into "The Roger Meyers Story" attraction, where it bursts out of the screen before crashing down, causing its head to fly off and leak blood onto Bart and Lisa.
In a Robot Repair station beneath the park, several engineers are researching the problem with the Scratchy Bot that was exposed to the flash photography, before Professor Frink appear, to warn them about a theory of where the animatronics will turn against their masters and cause panic across the park. Upon an engineer asking how much time they have before the robots cause havoc, Frink determines they have about 24 hours, which instantly prove to be wrong as the Scratchy Bot activates and takes down two engineers, while an Itchy Bot starts to follow another engineer.
Later when the Simpsons are the only ones left roaming the park at night, the Itchy and Scratchy Bots kill off all the power and start to march towards the family, with an Itchy Bot unsuccessfully attempting to kill Homer, before only being able to cut off his hair. After being rejected from entering a rescue chopper by a park mascot employee that Bart and Homer tormented earlier, the family is left for dead at the hands of the robots, while Marge accepts her fate.
However, Homer refuses to stand down and starts throwing what items he has equipped on him, including his camera which activates the flash and scrambles all the robots' circuits. Lisa finds out their weakness and shouts at Homer to continue attacking the robots that way while Bart breaks the window displays of a camera store to retrieve more cameras. Now armed in hand, the Simpsons are able to battle the robots until all are defeated, with Homer emerging triumph on a pile of Itchy and Scratchy Bot scrap parts.
After the whole situation has been dealt with, Roger Meyers Jr. thanks the Simpsons for stopping the robots and rewards them with two free passes. Meanwhile, Frink is investigating the corpse of a Scratchy Bot and cannot imagine the chaos that the robots would cause in Euro Itchy and Scratchy Land, before cutting away that the park is completely deserted, meaning the Itchy and Scratchy Bots were never activated in that park.
The Simpsons: Tapped Out[]
A solo pair of an Itchy & Scratchy Bot appear in the game, first making an appearance in the Cyber Monday 2017 Promotion where they could be purchased with 60 donuts. In the game's final event, Taps 2024, the characters reappeared in stores to commemorate the game's shutdown in 2025.
