An episode of the Simpsons made fun of the uber-conservative and very partial Fox News Channel by portraying a news ticker with scrolling headlines like, "Do Democrats Cause Cancer?", "Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay," and my favorite, "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple."
Infuriated, Fox News threatened to sue the Simpsons. The problem? The Simpsons is also broadcast on Fox. The resolution of the threatened suit was simple.
"Fox fought against it and said they would sue the show," [Matt] Groening said. "We called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. So, we got away with it."
In other words, no lawsuit. But not no consequences:"Now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news," [Groening] said.
Fox is perfectly within its rights in restricting what the Simpsons can say on the network. But Fox's argument for stopping news ticker parodies is ridiculous. It's the Simpsons, for crying out loud.
Read the story here. (Link thanks to How Appealing.)