In its original broadcast, "The Day the Violence Died" finished 47th in the ratings for the week of March 11–17, 1996, with a Nielsen rating of 9.2. The episode was the highest rated show on the Fox network that week. "The Day the Violence Died" received generally positive reviews from television critics. DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson enjoyed the episode and called it a "hoot", praising Harry Shearer's impression of David Brinkley. "It's hard to top the original Itchy cartoon – where else can you see a cartoon mouse kill both an Irishman and Teddy Roosevelt?", said Jacobson, further complimenting the episode's twist ending: "For once, when Bart and Lisa team up to do the right thing, it backfires badly." He also applauded the casting of Kirk Douglas as a guest star, and ended the review by calling the episode a "winner". Total Films Nathan Ditum named Douglas the 18th best guest star on The Simpsons. DVD Movie Guide claimed that any show focused on The Itchy & Scratchy Show is "hard to beat" and the Los Angeles Daily News considered this a "cause for joy". Jennifer Malkowski of DVD Verdict said that the best part of the episode is during The Itchy & Scratchy Show copyright trial, when lawyer Lionel Hutz "stalls for time by calling all of his surprise witnesses again: a ventriloquist and his dummy, Santa Claus with a broken leg, a caricature of John Swartzwelder, Ralph Wiggum, and the fattest twins in The Guinness Book of World Records". Malkowski concluded her review by giving the episode a grade of B−. The episode was considered a classic by The Rockford Register Star, which enjoyed the "perfect parody of the old 'Schoolhouse Rock' cartoon, 'I'm Just a Bill. DVD Movie Guide "loved" the first The Itchy & Scratchy Show cartoon, "Itchy & Scratchy Meet Fritz the Cat". In the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Unofficial "Simpsons" Guide by Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, they comment that "The Day the Violence Died" is "a great episode, with some clever observations on ideas and copyright, and a superb – and sinister – twist ending featuring the return of both Bart and Lisa from their days on The Tracey Ullman Show". Columbia University offered a course that analyzed The Simpsons during the September 2005 school term. In one of the classes, entitled "The Simpsons' Self-Referentiality", students viewed