Under a new law meant to protect kids from on-screen violence, Russian authorities are going to start censoring television shows, including cutting out the fictional kids' show Itchy and Scratchy from episodes of The Simpsons.

Think about that for a second: The show-within-a-show, meant to skewer violence in kids' shows, has itself been deemed too violent for kids. Is there a word for "meta" in Russian? Cutting out Itchy and Scratchy, as well as the Kenny death scenes from South Park, as Moscow News' Evgeniya Chaykovskaya notes) which is also part of this censorship plan, are better solutions than the possibility of canceling The Simpsons altogether, suggested while the Russian law was working its way through parliament, but those shows won't really be the same without their signature gimmicks. Fortunately, The Simpsons already has a replacement lined up from the archives: "Eastern Europe's favorite cat and mouse team," Worker and Parasite, from the 1993 episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled." Nobody will ever notice:

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Adam Martin