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The Simpsons Reviewed For Unsuitable Nuclear Jokes
Hugh Pickens writes "CNN reports that television networks in several European countries are reportedly reviewing episodes of 'The Simpsons' for any 'unsuitable' references to nuclear disaster, with an Austrian network apparently pulling two episodes: 1992's 'Marge Gets a Job' and 2005's 'On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister,' which include jokes about radiation poisoning and nuclear meltdowns. Al Jean, executive producer of the show, says that he can appreciate the concern. 'We have 480 episodes, and if there are a few that they don't want to air for awhile in light of the terrible thing going on, I completely understand that,' says Jean, citing the example of the 1997 episode 'The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson' that was pulled after 9/11 because it included key scenes at the World Trade Center. 'We would never make light of what's happening in Japan.'"
...believes that ignoring a problem will make it go away.
Seriously, not airing episodes of a satiric cartoon is in no way related to solving any problems that nuclear power may or may not have. It seems like a very pointless exercise to me...
My book: Friendly F#, fun with game development and XNA; my game: Galaxy Wars by VSTeam; my gamedev language: Casanova.
radical news: someone behaved in a mature and sensible way!
Fucking Pussies!!! That's what they are. Go ahead and mod me down. But you can never deny the TRUTH!
What nuclear meltdown?
CNN fishing for sensationalized fodder.
to make fun of it.
/b/, but it had a macabre humour to it: (to the tune of spongebob squarepants' theme) "who lives in their houses under the sea?" "japanese people"
This probably originated from
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
The episode where Homer plugs a leaking reactor with his bare ass could give them ideas on how to address the current leak. I doubt anyone in Japan would be big enough but we could check out some local McDonalds and ship them an American or two.
This story deserves it's own tag. WTFITWCT (What the fuck is the world coming to), or GMAFB. Something like that...
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
And if somehow Death Metal fans managed to take over the world suddenly cartoon network would be under the gun. Where does it end? With the Oblongs of course.
Humor is rooted in pain and suffering. Story at 11. and 11. and 11.
You wonder why America consistently makes you the butt of every stupid joke. You practically write them yourselves.
Political correctness is going to destroy Europe.
I'd say this was a joke, but then the EU might moderate it -1 Flamebait.
Japan"...
Uhhh.
Stephen Hawkings, countless celebrities and... Chernobyl [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Simpsons/Season_19] are fair game though?
Depends on the joke really. And if we're watching Simpsons or South Park.
I loved "The City of New York vs Homer Simpson". Great episode even after 9/11.
People are not able to sensor bad taste and content, jokes or editorial by themselves needing instead gov or industry to do it instead. That day appears to be yesterday, rest our heads in a moment of silence for that day wasted.
It is not ok to joke about nuclear things, but it is ok to take nuclear waste home.
About criticism being mounted when the motion picture version of The two Towers was coming out... E.g. waybackmachine.org/../twotowerprotest.org
...that "King Size Homer" will get pulled in some markets, which is unfortunate because it has one of the best lines in any Simpsons episode.
And S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout are banned too.
Are europeans incapable of switching the channel if they don't like what they see? do their governments have to do everything for them? it's bad enough here in the states. I'm sure the socialists here will mod me into oblivion because they've forgotten that it was free expression that allows them to voice and live by their opinions in the first place. now of course, once they have power, they shut everyone else up, just like everyone else! yes yes, of course, it's for the children, or jesus, or the gays, or allah, or yahweh, or blacks, or latinos, or indians, or whi..err not white males feelings, so that makes it all ok.
In case you haven't noticed, I hate double standards more than just about anything else.
Knife goes in... guts come out...
I appreciate the sympathy, however misplaced it is. I get a bit angry when everyone focuses on the nuclear stuff going on. The whole nuclear thing will affect some people in Fukushima prefecture (mostly economically) and maybe some of the neighboring prefectures. Still let's look at things in perspective: 3 hospitalized (they are fine apart from some 'sunburn') from the Fukushima plant issue; over 20,000 missing or dead from the tsunami plus a multitude more homeless and hospitalized. We aren't suffering from nuclear fallout, people, we are suffering from one of the worst natural disasters to hit Japan in over 20 years. Still that is the nature of the beast, 20,000 is just too large a number for people to internalize and sympathize with. However, we can all imagine our gruesome death at the hand of deadly radiation. We all know that these episodes aren't being censored out of sympathy. I just hope they don't replace the episodes with a tsunami episode.
This is ridiculous. The front page of my local newspaper (California, near the coast) is abuzz with "nyookulurr" concerns as well. Why don't they edit out the episodes having to do with, y'know, earthquakes and tsunamis, seeing as that's the brand of disaster Japan is facing right now. It seems to me that the situation with the power plants is being handled professionally and safely. If it wasn't for the public's irrational and uneducated fear of glowing green radioactivity, the nuclear power plants that we do have wouldn't be stuck at 1970's-level technology.
For optimal comment enjoyment, take red pill now.
It seems somewhat over reactive, but I see the idea.
"over reactive"... that's one of those pun things, isn't it?
On the flip side, they're allowed to show tits on TV in Austria, and the US has a meltdown when that happens.
"Meltdown", too? You're really on a roll tonight!
This is horrible! It's not like there are many other Simpsons reruns they could show instead.
Property is theft.
I dont see how this is more painful than the media people trying to make money out of the situation.
Somehow, I feel the risk they try to avoid is making people think the nuclear plants are operated by "Simpson like" personnel. Meaning... a real good-bye to public being opened to even listen arguments about nuclear energy being needed.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
cant people distinguish the difference between reality and a cartoon ? this is similar to the south park debate some while back. nice to know that television networks are further censoring what we get to see. really dont see the issue here as these episodes were from the 90's way before recent events even occured.
Editing out scenes that had the old WTC was stupid, and so is this.
Stop being oversensitive nutless wonders and expecting others to be the same.
Let's not overreact because god forbid a television network decides to show a shred of sensitivity of their own accord. Do you think anyone is telling The Daily Show not to make jokes about Japan? No. They are choosing not to. Right now some people might not find it amusing. This isn't censorship. It's called decency. If your point is that the show was written ten years ago, then calm down, it will be funny again later.
Are they also going back and wiping any reference to earthquakes and tsunamis? So far, tens of thousands have been confirmed to have died to those events, but we don't feel the need to be sensitive about that. But a nuclear accident that hasn't killed anyone is worth rewriting history of a comedy cartoon? It's not like the jokes were made at the expense of the current situation, being that they have existed for years.
I never did understand the removal of the twin towers from things either. Do we really want to show our respect to those that passed by trying to erase any mention or footage of the buildings?
Lisa (playing guitar):
We'll fight day and night
By the big cooling tower
They have the plant,
but we have the power
Lenny: Now play classical gas!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
How is airing episodes of Homer's misadventures at the plant making light of what happened? Did the writers see into the future and use it as an opportunity to piss on the Japanese? **** no.
I see that as something Seth MacFarlane would do, actually.
I've watched Simpsons since it was a short on Tracey Ullman, and they have once offended me enough that I turned it off. In fact, I turned the TV off for the night and went in the other room. In syndication to this day that episode makes me emotionally tighten up. I never filed a single complaint, wrote a single letter or missed an episode out of spite. If you watch that kind of series, you sign up for your ox getting gored occasionally.
I'm willing to bet that some retarded german politician will see a relation between "Duke Nukem Forever" and nuclear power and issue a ban on it before it's even released.
If it was ok to joke after Chernobyl, it should be ok to joke after Fukushima. People are so freaking uptight. It's a fucking cartoon. IT'S NOT REAL.
Doesn't the opening credits to every episode make fun of nuclear safety when Homer carelessly fumbles a radioactive rod around? As if exposing this material to the atmosphere is a humorous situation and not a serious one?
Ze Goggles do nawtheeng!
- -= Napalm means serious BBQ =-
I never did understand the removal of the twin towers from things either. Do we really want to show our respect to those that passed by trying to erase any mention or footage of the buildings?
It is sympathy for those who directly experienced the incidents. The towers only fell once. People have only been exposed to deadly amounts of radiation a handful of times in the last 100 years (more or less).
As horrible as it is, people die in earthquakes and tsunamis regularly. It happens. And one incident doesn't necessarily evoke another. It's just part of life on Earth.
I'm a reasonably well adjusted adult with a reasonably sane outlook on life, and I am glad that the WTC was erased from popular media for a time, because I knew a lot of people who died there. Seeing the towers during that time in a fictional or humorous way would just bring me to tears for my friends who died.
If you are far removed from these traumas, that's fine. You can still watch these episodes on dvd or similar. And they will probably air them again in a year or so. And that's fine.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
"Pepe, It's not nuclear, it's nucular." - Homer Simpson
I feel i need to even things out, so here is a Simpsons clip with the irradiated Curies destroying a Japanese looking city.
http://vimeo.com/21402842
Reminds me of the time during the Katrina crisis, where many US radio stations stopped playing The Tragically Hip's "New Orleans Is Sinking". As long as it's for a limited time, then I'm ok with a people trying to tread lightly while others are having a tough time. As long as things go back to normal after a bit...
Are they also going back and wiping any reference to earthquakes and tsunamis? So far, tens of thousands have been confirmed to have died to those events, but we don't feel the need to be sensitive about that. But a nuclear accident that hasn't killed anyone is worth rewriting history of a comedy cartoon? It's not like the jokes were made at the expense of the current situation, being that they have existed for years.
In the show, Homer Simpson works at a nuclear power plant, in an (intentionally poorly-defined) area of the United States that is not particularly near any ocean. There are plenty of jokes about nuclear power, but I don't recall any about earthquakes or tsunamis. If there are any, of course it makes sense to temporarily suspend airing them as well.
Looking for jokes about nuclear power in The Simpsons doesn't mean earthquakes and tsunamis are OK to joke about in light of current events; it means earthquakes and tsunamis were never funny to begin with and The Simpsons probably doesn't joke about them.
Orwells would be so proud about now-a-days. Just like out of his book 1984. Past has been corrected and thus WTC never really existed and those who remember it must be swiftly reeducated in the room 101.
This is pretty common place. Most of not *all* broadcasters will pull 'insensitive' content around a major event. For example, no AirForceOne during a 9/11 remembrance.
Is that people fear radiation because it is the monsters of childhood imaginations made real. Deadly, invisible, unstoppable, and, well, evil (from their perspective). They don't understand it, they can't see how it works, yet it can kill. With an explosion, a fire, a wave, you see what is happening, what caused the damage, and you see the problem coming even if you can't avoid it. It is easily knowable and understandable.
So because it is invisible and unknown (I mean to the people, not to everyone) it generates a deep, visceral, fear. It scares them like nothing else does and hence all the over reaction.
Heck in the US pharmacies across the nation sold out of Potassium Iodide. Never mind that even if Fukushima melts down there is no significant risk of any kind to the US, never mind that KI is only useful against one very specific problem (thyroid cancer caused by too much radioactive iodine), people are fearful and doing the only thing they can think of.
Hence you get stupid reactions like censoring nuclear Simpson's episodes.
For me, I worry very little about reactor, and not at all for my personal safety. I find it extremely unlikely it will cause any widespread harm in Japan. I worry about supplies, heat, and medical care for those still alive. The disaster is bad enough already but can get much worse. There are plenty of people who have not died, but who are not safe. They are who I have concern for.
What does a cartoon show have to do with real life? Nothing. People get offended by something that doesn't affect them yet again, and it is their own fault. The fact that something similar happened in real life does not mean that the joke is not 'funny' (subjective) or that it's 'bad' (subjective). It's irrelevant. People should, in my opinion, focus on real life, not on cartoons. I don't care if it's a joke about 9/11 or what have you. It is illogical to censor it. It has no affect on real life.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
How is it mature and sensible to retroactively censor a TV show? Seems more Minitrue to me.
Those shows will probably be back on TV in a few months/years. Right now, with that disaster happening, it seems a little distasteful to laugh about such matters, don't you think?
Although your local news agency might have lost interest, the disaster is still happening right now, and it might affect millions of people.
If Fox ever decides to finish The Simpsons I can't think of a better way than destroying Springfield with an earthquake, a tsunami and a meltdown, all in one episode.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I think after enough time has passed, showing the WTC is completely appropriate. The WTC towers may be gone, but it'll live on in movies and art/photography that was created when it was still around.
In that regard, digitally erasing the WTC buildings from the final print of a movie is kind of like destroying a memory. Justifiable, maybe, but still a little weird.
I never did understand the removal of the twin towers from things either. Do we really want to show our respect to those that passed by trying to erase any mention or footage of the buildings?
Obviously the US Government is guilty in the lead-up to and actual hijacking of the commercial aircraft which were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York City. Therefore, the need to censor episodic television, particularly cartoons, to remove references to "distasteful" events. The real story is the media neglect reporting to real disaster - a natural phenomena called a tsunami and an earthquake. The nuclear "crisis" has been handled reasonably well by the Government of Japan and the workers at the affected nuclear power plants.
This further censorship would encourage me to stop watching The Simpsons - if I hadn't done so when it stopped being funny 10 years ago.
Won't somebody please think of the children!?!
"remember, whatever you say can hurt a sensitive muslim, gay, or fat person, so please be as scilent as you can"
we have all been processed by this rather cruel fucking evolution, so how come that the only thing left seems to be overly sensitive people and morons?
Well, in the case of the Simpsons NY episode there's also the unfortunate coincidence that the brochure with the travel offer on it spells out 9/11 with the price and the twin towers. Many kooks have taken this to be a NWO / Illuminati ritual magic "here's what we're going to do" thing. Despite the ridiculousness of this, it has strengthened the association between the episode and 9/11 in the popular conciousness.
It is sympathy for those who directly experienced the incidents.
And it doesn't make sense. What good does erasing things from fictional material do? They need not be offended by it, and indeed, if they are, it is their own fault. Nothing forces them to be.
As horrible as it is, people die in earthquakes and tsunamis regularly.
Ah, I see. So if it happens regularly, the event is no longer a 'bad' thing and can be presented in a humorous manner? Some would likely disagree.
sane
Subjective.
Seeing the towers during that time in a fictional or humorous way would just bring me to tears for my friends who died.
That's quite illogical. It's a 'shame' that it happened, I believe, but if it bothers you so much (which I think it shouldn't), then don't watch it. Don't expect people to censor everything because you're sensitive.
You can still watch these episodes on dvd or similar.
And they can just not watch them at all.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I totally agree that this is censorship. I live in Venezuela and the government considered the Simpsons inappropriate for a morning show so it got replaced by Baywatch. The official reason was "Televen (the network) presumably could infringe the broadcasting prohibitions during said schedule with messages that are a threat to the integral formation of children and teenagers." So I guess it's alright to make you stupid and have all the girls have a perfect role model of how breasts should be, but having a little humor is way out of line. Besides the funny part of it all is that kids are actually at school at 11 AM so the law is completely absurd.
I can assure you it is reality, I've seen their house! http://rathausartprojects.com/blog/tag/architecture/
You probably believe the Matrix isn't real, either.
This offends me and my religion more!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
i want to kill this peaple they are slowing humanity down
i do not like porno(just to make a point) but this does not mean i must do everything i can to stop it
and if i want to lagh at a joke about nucliar disaster, then a lagh and show it to my fends
(i do not make associations to real life when i see a yellow family living the american dream)
STOP DECIDING FOR ME
my brother died tripping, so i want all jokes of people tripping band from television
Fuck these people, really, fuck these people who sanctimoniously decree how we ought to express ourselves at every turn. When the Japanese disaster occured, I immediately donated a quarter of my last paycheck to the Red Cross. Japan always fascinated me and I studied their culture quite a bit. But I also laughed at the jokes Gilbert Gottfried was making about it on his twitter feed (and now fired from Aflac for it).
Why? Because they were funny and I had the full knowledge that the victims wouldn't see the jokes because they likely had no TV/internet, and were WAY TOO BUSY putting their/other lives back together to pay attention.
The people who worry about this shit are the little do-gooders who have more interest in exerting their will and power over other people than actually helping the victims out.
FUCK THEM!
FUCK THEM!
FUCK THEM!
The time to discuss critical views of risks is precisely when the majority of the public is talking about a real episode that shows the nature of the risk.
If people don't want to watch _The Simpsons_ because its jokes will upset them, they don't have to watch. If publishers want to protect those people, the episodes can include a message that they make fun of the very not funny current disaster unfolding in Japan. The vast majority of people in Austria and elsewhere don't need Daddy protecting them from decade old jokes about somewhere else that are still true about Japan today.
Preventing public discussion of problems when the problems hurt most is one of the biggest reason we never learn from the problems and avoid them in the future.
--
make install -not war
and I closed all three of my eyes.
Someone really just wants an excuse to get paid to have a Simpsons marathon.
Well, the nuclear thing just gets everyone fired up, since it's a critical technology in all the developed world. CNN's having a blast with making a big deal out of this, for instance.
The tsunami? Not so much, it didn't even make a splash over here. It drowned in a sea of news about the nuclear issues and local problems.
(Yep, going to hell...)
I love the Simpsons and have watched every episode since their birth on Tracy Ulman's show. Year's old jokes about radiation or tsunamis wouldn't bother me, but I'm not in Japan.
What did bother me was the (probably unintentionally) mean-spirited joke they made about the star of "Precious" on last Sunday's episode. Did anyone else find Bart's comment about her only hope of another movie roll being as a new Death Star to be offensive? Quite a mis-step IMO.
Otherwise I find the show's skewering humor to be generally on-target. Just my semi-relevant 2c.
Becuase at the start he throws the nuclear fuel rod in to the street
Homer Simpson has been working at a Nuclear Power plant for 22 years! Shit people get a fucking sense of humor.
It's a cartoon. And overly-sensitive types do not have to watch it.
Your anger is misplaced. The reason they are removing these jokes is because Homer is an inept nuclear safety officer and therefore there are a large number of jokes in there. If he was a "tsunami safety officer" I'm sure they'd do the same thing.
I'm a little confused. The Simpsons episode with the World Trade Center shows Homer outside them, going to the top floor of one tower to use the bathroom only to find out it's out of order, then he goes to the top of the other tower to use the bathroom and see's his car get ticketed from the top. That's it. No terrorists. No mention of any violence.
Since 9/11 do we have to pretend the World Trade Center never existed? We can't have any pictures or cartoons of it on a TV show? What the hell?
Meanwhile, the news program that runs before it had no problem showing many replays of the towers getting destroyed (and still run them from time to time) and there are commercials that run during the show selling the World Trade Center attack commemerative coin.
Selling a worthless coin commemorating the WTC attack? Fine. Showing the video of the attack? Completely acceptable. Showing the WTC as a building not being attacked or threatened? Offensive.
This sentence no verb.
We got way too sensitive. If we don't nip this thing in the bud quickly, the next thing you know, people on the street will be smiling at you for no reason and asking "how are you", like they do in America. And the next thing you know, there will be large men wearing heels, carrying tampons in their purses, like they do in America...
I'm surprised there is no reference to 1995's "King-Size Homer", in which Mr. Burns rewards Homer saying, "you turned a potential Chernobyl in to a mere Three Mile Island."
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I love how temporarily opting to avoid showing a handful of episodes that a chunk of viewers won't find funny is the same as rewriting history.
I have a horrible realization for you, but feel that it will be better for you to know in the long run. Broadcasters don't generally broadcast every rerun of a show in order. The more popular episodes get played more frequently and the least popular may be rarely or never played. This is especially true of shows that have been around for many seasons. This is simply updating the list while a portion of their viewer base is overly sensitized.
(Yes, the people are illogical and ridiculous. It is still in the best interest of the broadcaster to plan around it.)
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Homer: I don't see Barney "Let's crash the space shuttle into the whitehouse and kill the President" Gumble...
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Since it'll be awhile before you get to hear these gems again, here ya go:
(After Homer vents gas from a nuclear reactor and destroys crops of corn)
Farmer: Oh no, the corn! Paul Newman's gonna have ma' legs broke!
Mr. Burns: Homer, your bravery and quick thinking have turned a potential Chernobyl into a mere Three Mile Island. Bravo!
(After Homer causes a nuclear meltdown in a simulator)
Nuclear Safety Engineer: I don't understand it! There wasn't any nuclear material in that van!
Remove all references to nuclear meltdown from popular culture, lest the public be shocked at how a simple cartoon managed to project tragedy so perfectly into the future, yet the brightest brains in the industry are standing around a smoldering ruin (but not too closely mind you) wondering what the hell went wrong/is going on? Whocouldanode? Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
You're all missing the real significance of this: somebody's getting paid to watch Simpsons episodes!
Of course slash dots are for this are great majority of you seem to hate freedom in any form including speech, unless its assan, and you like being told what you can and can not do. Isn't that what your 2nd grade teacher told you and obama?
...is the one where Homer threatens someone with the model of a nuclear reactor. The reactor has a switch that is labeled as (in that order):
Low / Nuclear Holocaust / High.
The goggles do nothing!
We barely knew ye!
-Dave Haynie
Stay classy, eurofriends. Nobody's going to deny the holocaus^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe dangers of nuclear power.
I have not seen anyone addressing the most important point of this article- someone has been given the job of watching every episode of The Simpsons. How did I miss out on this?
Also, how long will it be before they ban every show with a nuclear family?
When filling up my water bottles at a local water filtering place here in Cali, the guy mentioned that all the iodine tablets were sold out.
I was beside myself at how selfish and completely scared everyone is.
Japan is 10+ hours by flight away... and folks here are spending money on iodine tablets because of the "radiation cloud". W. T. F.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
having jokes in the Simpsons about nuclear catastrophes does not ridicule victims of nuclear catatrophes but rather people not taking the seriously enough. Deleting this jokes makes it sound like nobody ever thought about the possibility of such a thing, thus making the position of the people who do not take it seriously enough stronger.
"We would never make light of what's happening in Japan - but, kids, look what's happening in Libya! Hey hey!"
Not surprised that the Simpsons show in general are what appears to be fining for attention. That show has gone crashing down hill sense season 12 or so. Doesn't shock me that they're likely just working on shock value.
I miss the old days were the Simpsons didn't try to force some current event or lame pop-culture into their shows in a half-baked lame ass way.
Last time I checked the news the disaster was earthquakes and waves that killed many many thousands of people. The reactor has not even come close to being on the same scale.
Why are they not censoring earthquakes and waves in Simpson episodes? There the cause of the loss of life.
Farnsworth, don't take this personally, but at some point you simply have to get over it. My joke above is pretty tasteless, but it doesn't mean I didn't love my mother, we were very close. But at some time you just have to move on. Hiding from the issue only extends it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.