Matt Groening thought he was being funny when he told NPR that The Simpsons had been threatened with a lawsuit for its slam of FoxNews. Groening was apparently making a joke related to its recent lawsuit against Al Franken. That was a really dumb move on their part, since it just drew attention to his book, which is why I thought it extra stupid that FoxNews would then turn around and sue a show owned by their owner NewsCorp. I couldn’t believe that the episode could get to air without getting legal approval beforehand, too. Groening’s statement always seemed fishy to me.
Now that his little joke has been reported as fact and ranted and raved about all over the internet, Groening admits that Fox News Didn’t Threaten the Simpsons.
For those of you who haven’t seen the episode from Simpsons season 14, it follows Krusty the Clown’s run for office. Krusty has been shown in previous episodes to be a registered Republican; he’s always in the meetings at Dracula’s castle with the rich Texan, Mr. Burns, Dr. Hibbert, Ranier Wolfcastle, Birch Barlowe, Dracula and Bob Dole, who opens every meeting with a reading from the Necronomicon. In other words, the over-the-top portrayal of the party in the Simpsons universe is a given. The show cuts to a pretend FoxNews host who announces “FoxNews: Your Network for evil” and proceeds to tilt the news very much against Krusty’s opponent while a news crawl announces tidbits like “92% of Democrats are Gay.”
Oh sure, it’s mean, but it’s certainly the way Groening and his ilk view FoxNews and it’s not a bad parody…aside from the fact that the anchor is really boring. They should have had a cool guy similar to Shepherd Smith or a really hot babe like Laurie Dhue.