The Simpsons. Remember them? Popular animated series, culturally relevant ten to twenty years ago? On yesterday’s episode, the opening sequence was storyboarded and directed by none other than pop-culture graffiti artist (and object of affection for Chinatown merchants) Banksy, which takes a dark turn and comments about the Simpson’s production methods — the use of Korean animation studios for tweening, coloring, and filming to make episodes cheaper — and uses that as a springboard to comment on cheap, cruel, mass-produced Asian labor, complete with beheaded dolphins and tortured pandas and unicorns.
As to why this wouldn’t get the immediate stamp of disapproval from FOX, the blog 21st Century Boy points out a tweet by Johnathan Gray on twitter, which leads to a possible explanation on his blog: “FOX can’t decide what goes on The Simpsons. James L. Brooks negotiated a “no notes” policy into the show’s contract, so FOX can either play something or cancel the show; they don’t get to nit-pick.”
To quote Alex Choi on Twitter: “we don’t have Pandas in Korea, but yes, we do have unicorns.” Indeed.
[UPDATE: Fox has taken down all YouTube clips, ironically enough, so we’re using a Hulu embed instead; apologies for people viewing this blog post outside of the United States!]
