The Simpsons: 10 Episodes Probably Made Out Of Spite
8. Itchy & Scratchy Land
During seasons five and six of The Simpsons the show was led under showrunner David Mirkin who immediately began to receive pushback from Fox. Specifically, the feedback was about the show within the show: Itchy & Scratchy. Fox were concerned with the animated ultra-violence and asked him to basically cut the two characters completely.
In reaction, The Simpsons writers went the other way entirely and crafted a season six episode that takes The Simpsons family to Itchy & Scratchy Land. The story allowed them to write as much animated brutality as they liked. Fox said that if such an episode were produced then they would remove the Itchy & Scratchy parts out themselves, although its fair to say that wouldn’t leave much of an episode. All the same, Mirkin told his superiors that if that were the case he would tell the media what they had done.
Fox relented, and the episode aired in 1997.
Additionally, the episode serves as a parody of Disneyland by combining the seemingly perfect majesty of the Mouse's wonderland with the various dangers of both Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and Westworld books. In hindsight, there’s some delicious irony to be had in that The Simpsons is now owned by Disney and continues to be censored to appease the worldwide Disney+ audience.