Monday, April 14, 2008

Venezuela Beaches Homer for the Hoff

You just can't make stuff like this up (b@stards!). Full story here:


By Natalie Finn
Mon, 7 Apr 2008 09:04:24 PM PDT
Venezuela has replaced Homer Simpson with a different type of boob.

After officials deemed The Simpsons to be in danger of violating the country's Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television, TV station Televen replaced daily broadcasts of the sitcom with episodes of Baywatch Hawaii.

The animated comedy had been airing at 11 a.m. on weekdays, an all-age-groups time slot that risked the dissemination of "messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents."

No one pinpointed what exactly about the melodrama revolving around scantily clad lifeguards was more acceptable for impressionable children than the iconic sitcom, but the National Telecommunications Commission reported receiving viewer complaints.

"It had to be taken off," Televen spokeswoman Elba Guillen said, adding that it would be up to station management to find a new time slot for The Simpsons. "They consider it to be a series that isn't appropriate for that time because it isn't appropriate for children."

Station general manager Perez Nahim told the Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias on Friday, when the change went into effect, that the station itself never received Simpsons-related complaints, so he hoped it would continue to have a strong following once it's rescheduled.

"We are hoping it will continue to have a good rating, because The Simpsons worked very well—so much so that it had the highest levels of viewership for that morning timetable in the history of the channel," Nahim said.

Baywatch Hawaii, which is what the 10th and 11th (and final) seasons of Baywatch were called, aired from 1999 to 2001, with David Hasselhoff's Mitch Buchannon hanging around for half of it.

Impressive, but The Simpsons is in all probability heading into its 20th season on Fox this fall, when it will matchGunsmoke's record as the longest-running scripted show in prime time.

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