Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie & Fred & Wilma & Pebbles

Here is one of the sillier, yet strangely intriguing, mysteries surrounding The Simpsons. "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", as well as being correctly considered one of the greatest episodes the show ever did, was also the 167th episode to be broadcast -- meaning it overtook The Flintstones as the world's longest-running prime-time animation.

Most versions of the episode use the Sgt Pepper's parody couch gag -- this was definitely the version used on the original US broadcast on 9 February 1997, and it is also the version used on the Season 8 DVD. However, an alternative version of the episode exists, which uses the couch gag from the Season 4 episode "Kamp Krusty", where Our Favourite Family run in to find the Flintstones already on the couch -- obviously done in reference to the episode's record-breaking nature. However, this has obviously been hastily done, since the audio from the Sgt Pepper's couch gag is still playing over it. ("Kamp Krusty" also featured a screen in the end credits saying the Flintstones appeared courtesy of Hanna-Barbera, which is presumably not found in the alternate edit.)

There are two known places where this alternate edit is or was seen -- US syndication, and Sky One's original UK broadcast of the episode, which was on 13 April 1997. A theory is that after the original broadcast, people suggested that they should have used the Flintstones gag, and someone went back and made the edit to the network copy so future broadcasts could mark the milestone. (The fact that the alternate version was seen in the UK at all indicates that it was not done specifically for the syndicated version -- copies of episodes for overseas broadcasts tend to be copies of what the network had, not anything that was done for syndication.)

Now, look at this video someone's made of all the Season 8 couch gags. At 47 seconds in appears the alternate Flintstones-visuals-Sgt-Pepper's-audio gag... with the Fox Network logo in the top right corner. Is this from the one and only US network repeat (which was on 25 May 1997)? Because that would seem to go an awfully long way to validating the above theory, although it does raise the question of why the DVD uses the original version when they generally go with revised versions -- perhaps someone on the commentary team noticed the oddity and decided to get the "correct" visuals restored?