http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8412813/Japan-crisis-sparks-Simpsons-nuclear-disaster-ban.html

Japan crisis sparks Simpsons nuclear disaster ban

Broadcasters in Germany, Australia and Switzerland have decided to ban or censor episodes of The Simpsons that poke fun at nuclear disasters in light of Japan's atomic emergency.

7:00AM BST 29 Mar 2011

"We are checking all the episodes and we won't show any suspect ones, but we won't cut any scenes," Stella Rodger, a spokesman for German private broadcaster Pro7, said. "We haven't postponed any yet."

Austria's ORF network has so far banned a total of eight episodes, including one that features scientists Marie and Pierre Curie dying of radiation poisoning. Switzerland's SF network has done the same.

The nuclear plant in the Simpsons' hometown of Springfield is a key element in the long-running satirical cartoon, with the hapless Homer in charge of safety despite a slapdash approach evident from the opening credits onwards.

Previous episodes have shown nuclear waste dumped in a children's playground, plutonium used as a paperweight, cracked cooling towers, luminous rats and three-eyed mutant fish, as well as near-meltdowns.

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