adidas' many The Simpsons sneaker drops have nearly all proven remarkably thoughtful, even when they aren't quite bangers. This carries over to the latest round, where adidas dishes Rivalry and Pro Model 80 sneakers inspired by Itchy, Scratchy, and Poochie.
Now, it's not so wild that adidas would devise sneakers inspired by Itchy and Scratchy, the eponymous stars of the brutally violent cartoon beloved by nearly all of Springfield.
The shoes themselves are also pretty standard fare, just some shoes fitted with thematic colors and a neat box (I'll give adidas further props for assigning tiny Itchy a low-top pair and Scratchy, the taller cat, a high-top).
The clever thing here, really, is that adidas also created a pair of shoes for Poochie, the thoroughly maligned third-wheel from "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show," a particularly excellent episode from The Simpsons' eighth season.
More on that in a second but the Poochie-themed adidas themselves are also pretty standard fare. They boast a zipper inspired by Poochie's leather jacket, embossed show logo (with Poochie holding his surfboard) towards the heel, and kinda look like the shoes he himself wears, except for the orange laces.
Poochie Halloween costume, anyone? If so, shop the shoes come their October 6 release date via adidas' site for $200 apiece ($220 for the Scratchy high-tops).
Anyways, very much inspired by real-life experiences, "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"s premise — meddling studio execs attempt to infuse fresh life into a long-running cartoon by adding a sidekick loathed by audiences — is a multifaceted satire.
At once, it riffs on actual show-ruining additions (Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain comes to mind) a particularly terrible suggestion offered by a Fox suit: "And at one point, someone suggested that we add another family member to [The Simpsons], a teenager," co-showrunner Josh Weinstein recently recalled.
At the end of the episode, Poochie is memorably killed off in the laziest way possible and a note tells the viewer that he died on the way to his home planet. RIP Poochie!
That Poochie's sole appearance in The Simpsons is also his last might make you think that he's too minor a character to receive his own adidas sneaker but not so.
These shoes continue the trend of adidas churning out some pretty thoughtful Simpsons shoes, like Homer hedge .GIF-referencing Stan Smith and the bushy Superstar that reflects Marge's towering hair.
It's nice that even the Simpsons sneakers likely only to be appreciated by series obsessives have some nice touches, even if they aren't quite as outrageous as Poochie himself (he's one outrageous dude, you know).
