A new law passed in Russia bans violence, smoking, and drinking from being portrayed on television before 11pm.
Tag: controversy
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The Simpsons and Futurama at Comic Con Tomorrow
Audience members of The Simpsons panel tomorrow at Comic Con 2009 can expect a sneak preview at the upcoming 20th Treehouse of Horror episode, “Treehouse of Horror XX”, along with further information regarding the 21st season of the show. Futurama will see representation at the convention also.
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Groening Defends Muslim Storyline
Matt Groening has defended a controversial storyline in the episode “Mypods and Boomsticks” which saw Homer Simpson accuse his Muslim neighbors of terrorism. A spokesperson for Britain’s The Islamic Cultural Centre & The London Central Mosque slammed the episode, telling UK newspaper the Daily Star, “I hope Muslims take no notice of the show.” But Groening has come out in defence of the episode, saying, “Cartoons deal in stereotypes. We try to be sensitive.”
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Man Fined For Viewing Simpsons Porn
An Australian man has been fined $2,000 after Simpsons “pornography” was discovered on his home computer. The central issue in the case was whether a cartoon character could depict a real person. Judge Michael Adams decided that it could, and found the man guilty of possessing child pornography.
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Man Jailed For “Spider Pig” Insults
A UK man has been jailed for breaching the peace by singing the Spider Pig song from The Simpsons Movie at police officers. David Mullen was sentenced to three months for the incident and calling an officer “ginger” in a police van. He claimed he was singing the song because it was the ringtone on his mobile phone.
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The Simpsons Is Banned In Russia
Russian television channel 2×2 will bow to state pressure on September 22nd when it removes The Simpsons from Russian television screens for the forseeable future, or maybe even for good.
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Simpsons Pulled Off Air For Swimsuit Models
BOOBIES! Offended? You shouldnt be. After all, the above imagery is more wholesome and less offensive than any episode of The Simpsons. At least, that’s the verdict in Venezuela, where Baywatch Hawaii will replace The Simpsons, which is being taken off the air because it may be inappropriate for children.
“It had to be taken off,” said Elba Guillen, spokesperson for the network which airs the series at 11am weekdays. “They consider it to be a series that isn’t appropriate for that time because it isn’t appropriate for children.” The regulatory agency didn’t specify which elements of the program were deemed offensive, but said showing the animated cartoon series at that hour could violate national regulations prohibiting “messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents.”
SOURCE: Yahoo
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Australian Man Fined For Simpsons Piracy
A Sydney man who uploaded the first known pirated copy of “The Simpsons Movie” to the Internet after recording it on his cell phone was fined $888 by a magistrate Tuesday for breaching copyright. An international operation tracked the unauthorized copy to the home of Jose Duarte, 21, who was arrested in August.
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EA Upsets Companies With Simpsons Game
EA’s forthcoming The Simpsons game parodies 30 years of videogaming and gaming IPs, but there are games companies that have refused to see the funny side of things. “I was always under the impression that when you do parody, it’s a sign of respect… If we make fun of Grand Theft Auto, we’re not going to hurt the sales of Grand Theft Auto… But yeah, we’ve definitely had some reactions – we’ve had to pull stuff from the game”, The Simpsons Game lead designer Greg Rizzer revealed to Computer & Video Games in an interview earlier this week.
“But that’s cool to me”, Rizzer continued. “It’s cool to still know, I feel, that the industry’s been waiting for a game like this to come along. It’s been too long since we really had one, and of course [there’s] The Simpsons being the perfect vehicle to poke fun at the games industry.”
SOURCE: Computer & Video Games
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Simpsons Movie Pirated In Australia
Sydney has the dubious distinction of being the first market in the world where “The Simpsons Movie” was pirated, with distributor 20th Century Fox tracking an illegal Internet copy of the film to a Down Under locale within 72 hours of its Australian release. But in an indication that the industry’s enforcement initiatives are working, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft said Friday that a 21-year-old Sydney man was arrested the day before in relation to the unauthorized recording and uploading and charged with copyright theft. He faces up to five years jail.
The “Simpsons” copy was found before the film’s U.S. release July 27 and tracked back to a computer in western Sydney. AFACT alleges that the man arrested used his cell phone to film the movie at a cinema in western Sydney before uploading it on the Internet. Close international cooperation between the Australian Federal Police, AFACT and 20th Century Fox resulted in the removal of the unauthorized recording within 72 hours of its posting. But during that window the movie was uploaded to a U.S.-based global streaming site where it was viewed or downloaded more than 3,000 times.
AFACT additionally tracked it to other streaming sites and P2P systems where it had been illegally downloaded in excess of 110,000 times. Investigators even found a version of the film dubbed in French. Copies of “The Simpsons Movie” already are widely available on the street in China, though it is unclear if the Chinese copies came from the Australian upload.
SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter
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Conan O’Brien’s Simpsons Snub
Entertainment Weekly’s website EW.com has just posted an exclusive in which late night host Conan O’Brien jokes about being one of just two early Simpsons writers not asked to collaborate on the movie adaptation
In Entertainment Weekly for its Simpsons cover story that hits stands this Friday, O’Brien jokingly responds to a comment by current show runner Al Jean that he would have simply “laughed” off an invite to work on the movie, deadpanning: “I cleared my talk show schedule for a year at great financial cost to myself, got an apartment right outside the Fox lot, and told them I was ready to report to work. All I heard back was that they were having trouble finding me a parking space, and then they stopped returning my calls altogether. I am stunned and disappointed…. Truth be told, I worry that the Simpsons-writing portion of my brain has been destroyed after 14 years of talking to Lindsay Lohan and that guy from One Tree Hill, so maybe it’s all for the best.” This week’s EW has more details on Conan and the upcoming Simpsons Movie.
Update: Matt Groening can be seen on Conan O’Brien tonight!
SOURCE: Entertainment Weekly
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Stolen Homer Simpson Statue Found
Two college students believed to be over-exuberant fans of The Simpsons stole a life-sized figurine of Homer Simpson from a cinema, but police tracked them down and forced them to return it Thursday. “This case has been solved,” Mazlan Mansor, police chief of Malaysia’s central Petaling Jaya district, told The Associated Press. The fiberglass replica of Homer holding a TV remote control was part of a promotional display at a local cinema.