The show now echoes life during the Covid-19 lockdown, with the characters stranded, unable to authentically relate to its audience, clinging desperately to an old world that no longer exists, and just repeating the same things they have always done.
The absurdity of the SABC that wants MultiChoice's DStv, StarSat, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others to tack on a SABC TV Licence fee is that the SABC doesn't even know who has or doesn’t have a TV.
A classic episode of The Simpsons is being removed from broadcast, streaming and even DVD - anywhere it exists - with viewers who will never see it again unless you've already downloaded it or have it on a video or DVD box set, and here's why.
The production company of The Simpsons, in their own decision, is removing a 1991 episode of the long-running series that was broadcast on M-Net (DStv 101, then jumping to VUZU (DStv 166) and FOX (DStv 125 / StarSat 131 / Cell C black 201), that features a guest appearance by singer Michael Jackson.
In the third season The Simpsons episode entitled "Stark Raving Dad", Michael Jackson voiced the character of Leon Kompowsky who is a patient in a mental institution, who believes that he is Michael Jackson, and where Homer also ends up temporarily after Bart takes his dad's mental stability test.
When Leon calls and Bart answers and he says "I'm Michael Jackson. It's true. I'm with your father in a mental institution," that is really Michael Jackson speaking.
The episode also contains the song, "Happy Birthday Lisa", that Michael Jackson wrote specifically for this episode of The Simpsons.
When the episode was originally shown, people didn't know that Michael Jackson had lent his voice because his involvement was uncredited until years later, with the name John Jay Smith appearing in the credit list instead.
The pulling of The Simpsons episode comes after the controversial HBO documentary film series, Leaving Neverland, distributed globally by the Kew Media Group, was first screened at the Sundance Film Festival and this past week on HBO in the United States.
It tells the story of two boys, Wade Robson and James Safechuck - now in their 30s - who describes in horrific detail how they were allegedly sexually abused by Michael Jackson from the ages of 7 and 10.
Kew Media Distribution already sold Finding Neverland to 130 countries and territories including the United Kingdom, the Middle East and New Zealand. TVwithThinus asked M-Net last week if it had acquired it and the pay-TV channel said it doesn't have it yet but would look into it.
About the scrubbing of The Simpsons episode, the longtime executive producer, James L. Brooks told The Wall Street Journal that "It feels clearly the only choice to make".
The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and producer Al Jean were in agreement with James L. Brooks to forever bury the specific episode, with Brooks telling the newspaper that "This was a treasured episode. There are a lot of great memories we have wrapped up in that one, and this certainly doesn't allow them to remain."
He said it was important to remove the episode because "the documentary gave evidence of monstrous behaviour" and that the episode must be removed "to show compassion for Michael Jackson's alleged victims".
Removing The Simpsons episode from all broadcast, syndication, streaming, DVD and other platforms will take time but James L. Brooks said that "the process has started".
The legendary animation show The Simpsons seen on FOX (DStv 125 / StarSat 131 / Cell C black 201) has been renewed for its 31st and 32nd seasons which will take the series to an unprecedented record of 713 episodes.
The Simpsons is a Gracie Films Production in association with 20th Century Fox Television. James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and Al Jean are the executive producers.
Fox made the announcement on Wednesday at the current Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour in Pasadena, California.
The Simpsons, currently in its 30th season, has won 33 Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards, and a 2016 People’s Choice Award.
The Simpsonsis the first series to be renewed at FOX for the 2019-2020 broadcast season in the United States.
■ Shocking new TV show in Belgium breaks viewership records as a comedian tell jokes in the horrifically cruel show called Taboo, about paraplegics, amputees, and all kinds of minorities including gays, dwarfs, the poor, the fat, blind people, people with mental illness and even children without arms.
The rest of the world spends nearly 3 hours per day watching TV. Meanwhile millennials and young adults are spending more time on their cellphones and watching TV that way.
Homer Simpson has been banned in Russia with an upcoming episode of the satirical animation show The Simpsons that includes Pokemon Go won't be shown in Russia in which Homer plays a video game inside a church.
The Simpsons episode "Looking for Mr. Goodbart" has been banned after Russia's Orthodox Church apparently complained, and called the show "Hollywood propaganda".
The TV channel 2x2 said it will not show the episode because it could "compromise the network and cause controversy".
In the episode of The Simpsons Homer Simpson plays a game named Peekimon Get based on Pokemon Go, and enters a church looking for Peekimons.
A few months ago in September 2016, the Russian blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky walked in a church in St. Petersburg in Russia whilst playing Pokemon Go, and was arrested. He is now facing a possible jail sentence of between three and five years.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Russian archpriest Andrei Novikov said The Simpsons is "compromising Russian society" and that he wants Russia to show "more control over media products".
Mwasa accuses SABC of "battle of attrition" against staffer who was allegedly attacked.
Union says the SABC is allegedly unfair in the case in which a staffer has made a case against the SABC's head of news, Jimi Matthews, after she was allegedly assaulted by him during the State of the Nation Address earlier this year. The SABC allegedly insist that its matricless chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng "should preside on the case".
Watch the trailer for the ooh new and awesome looking science fiction drama, Childhood's End.
Of course based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel. (Sidenote: Please, please, please, please can MultiChoice just add Syfy? That channel is in a dramatic quality, genre content resurgence. Adding Syfy now will be the same as adding MGM which turned into AMC which will suddenly have The Walking Dead spin-off upping its street cred.)
It's been two years in the making and will be the most expensive and most ambitious episode in the 25 year history of The Simpsons, and now TV Guideis reporting on an upcoming episode of The Simpsons done entirely in ... LEGO!
The Simpsons has been working on the episode for the past two years, according to TV Guide, with the half hour going out in America on 4 May.
"The LEGO brand is all about creativity and imagination. We respect that in others," Jill Wilfert, the LEGO group's vice president of licensing and entertainment, told TV Guide about working with The Simpsons to create the episode and the story.
Not in the article - but interestingly, The LEGO Movie of earlier this year proved extremely popular, was remarkably clever and was very creatively done.
Although The Simpsons wouldn't have know it when the episode was greenlit two years ago, the show about the yellow American family living in Springfield which skews current popular culture, is once again right on the money, doing a satirical homage to something everyone knows in a story which will surely be very clever.
Back to the article and according to TV Guide it was LEGO who approached the show a few years ago and suggested that The Simpsons use LEGO as one episode's opening sequence - the opening title theme which always has a slightly different ending.
The Simpsons said: "Forget the couch; let's do an entire episode!"
In hindsight, their foresight is/was once again sheer creative brilliance.
Massive TV marathons of The Simpsons, Falling Skies and Camelot are coming to Fox Entertainment (TopTV 180) over Christmas, with a marathon of The Walking Dead early in January on Fox FX (TopTV 110).
The Simpsons Christmas Hamper will run from 16:00 to 18:15 on 24 December on Fox Entertainment with 6 very special Simpsons Christmas episodes.
On 26 December TopTV subscribers will be able to gorge on what Fox Entertainment calls ''Boxing Day Box Sets": a TV marathon of the first season of the great new Steven Spielberg produced sci-fi drama Falling Skies, with episodes that will run from 13:30 until 21:00.
Camelot will follow after that, with the first season's set of episodes that will unspool back-to-back from 21:00 to 04:30.
The Walking Dead also gets a quick daily-repeat cycle. All the episodes from the first season as well as the first half of the second of The Walking Dead will be shown on Fox FX from 1 to 6 January from 21:15 every night before the second half of the second season's episodes start in February in America and which will again be shown in South Africa a few days later.
''The exclusive screeing of the second season of The Walking Dead on FX on TopTV showed that Fox International Channels (FIC) is serious about bringing quality, edgy, winning entertainment shows timeously to South Africa,'' says Thandi Davids, Fox Africa director.
''We beat the broadcasters with this one. In 2011 we kept the show locked on FX exclusively for TopTV subscribers, now we give them a unique experience early in the New Year,'' she says.
''This is good news for fans who want to play catch-up. We'll be showing the entire first season and the first part of season two. A series that will be going into a third season next year.''
The Walking Dead will have the following January broadcasting times:
Season 1, episodes 1 – 3: Sunday, 1 January, 21:15 – 23:45
Season 1, episodes 4 – 6: Monday, 2 January, 21:15 – 23:30
Season 2, episodes 1 – 3: Tuesday, 3 January, 21:15 – 23:45
Season 2, episodes 4 – 7: Wednesday, 4 January, 21:15 – 00:15
Way back in 1995 The Simpsons had an episode that predicted the wedding of Lisa Marie Simpson to Hugh St. John Alistair Parkfield on Sunday, 1 August 2010 at 13:00 at the Springfield Meadows. That's today.
I can be first to tell you that the 21st and ground-breaking season of that yellow pop culture courant family, The Simpsons, will start on Vuzu (DStv 123) on Monday, 12 April 2010. There will be 23 episodes.
This 21st season will mark The Simpsons as the longest running American primetime TV series. Cowabunga.
