Worker And Parasite / "Endut! Hoch Hech!"

About

Worker And Parasite is an animated short parodying Eastern European animation that was shown in an episode of The Simpsons. The short, as well as its ending line "Endut! Hoch Hech!" has gained a cult following amongst Simpsons fans, and has led to fan animations, meme edits, and fan art of the characters.

Origin

The short appeared in The Simpsons episode titled Krusty Gets Kancelled,^[1] which first aired on May 13th, 1993. In the episode, Krusty is unable to show his usual Itchy & Scratchy cartoons due to them being taken by his show's rival, Gabbo. Instead, Krusty shows another cat and mouse cartoon from Eastern Europe called Worker and Parasite. The cartoon (shown below) shows a cat and mouse talking in an unknown language, walking to the end of a breadline, and then ending with the line "Endut! Hoch Hech!". The screen then cuts back to Krusty standing with a stupefied look on his face and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

One of the earliest known comedic references to the scene was posted to YouTube on April 21st, 2011 by YouTuber SonOfAquaman,^[6] who re-animated the scene to feature Team Fortress 2 characters, gaining over 85,000 views in 13 years (shown below).

Spread

The scene inspired multiple video parodies and tributes on YouTube in the 2010s. For example, on December 22nd, 2016, YouTuber Gatista-autista^[4] uploaded an Ed, Edd, and Eddy parody of the short, gaining over 6,700 views in seven years (shown below, left). On March 4th, 2023, YouTuber McSuperfly^[5] posted a Steamed Hams parody of "Worker and Parasite," gaining over 9,700 views in one year

The clip began seeing more frequent use in memes towards the end of the 2010s, coinciding with the rise of Simpsons Shitposting. For example, on June 11th, 2018, Redditor badpunforyoursmile posted a joke referencing the scene to /r/simpsonsshitposting,^[2] gaining over 600 points in six years (shown below, left). On May 6th, 2021, Facebook user Andy Kyriacou posted an edit to the group Simpsons Bortposting,^[3] gaining over 1,000 reactions in three years (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References