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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Wednesday called on American Muslims to thank the Fox television network and the creator of "The Simpsons" for a recent episode that used comedy to challenge Islamophobia. The episode, which aired Sunday evening and is titled "Mypods and Boomsticks," highlights anti-Muslim sentiment by featuring a young Muslim character named Bashir and his family who face prejudice after moving to Springfield. In the program, Homer Simpson wrongly suspects that Bashir's family is involved in a terrorist plot. Bart Simpson befriends Bashir and defends him from bullies. CAIR's Greater Los Angeles Area office (CAIR-LA) sent...

Doh.... LOS ANGELES, Dec 03, 2008 -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on American Muslims and other people of conscience to thank the Fox television network and the creator of "The Simpsons" for a recent episode that used comedy to challenge Islamophobia. The episode, which aired Sunday evening and is titled "Mypods and Boomsticks," highlights anti-Muslim sentiment by featuring a young Muslim character named Bashir and his family who face prejudice after moving to Springfield. In the program, Homer Simpson wrongly suspects that Bashir's family is involved in a terror plot. Bart Simpson befriends Bashir and defends...

For you students who have been fans of the Simpsons since way back in your Pogs days, you know it goes without saying that Homer Simpson screws up… a lot. But for once, in this clip, Homer’s blunder is not his fault at all. He did the right thing, he voted for Obama! Alas, the machine wouldn’t let him… instead it changes his vote to McCain every time. It’d be funny if it didn’t seem eerily plausible. (And just plain eerie, seriously, listen to the opening music.) As Simpson says, “This doesn’t happen in America, maybe Ohio, but not in...

In an episode of 'The Simpsons' slated to run November 2, Homer Simpson will vote for Barack Obama. As Homer tries to vote for Obama, a machine changes the vote to McCain and proceeds to kill him.

Nancy Cartwright, the voice behind Bart Simpson, has been awarded Scientology's Patron Laureate Award after she donated $10 million in 2007. Cartwright's gift -- almost two times her annual salary from "The Simpsons" -- puts her top of a list of celebrity benefactors. She gave even more than Tom Cruise who has donated $5 million in the last four years. Kirstie Alley gave $5 million last year. John Travolta and Kelly Preston gave $1 million, while Priscilla Presley was handed the Patron Award for a donation of $50,000. The prizes were handed out at a top-secret ceremony in Florida.

Janine Butler, a 28-year-old New Jersey teacher, knows something about out-of-control students. One girl threw objects, threatened Butler with knives and tried to bite her. Another boy was "just rude, rude, rude," pulling down his pants and swearing at her. The final straw came when another student scratched and hit her. Butler's students were barely out of diapers — 3- and 4-year-olds — and their public preschool in Trenton was not allowed to expel them. "No one would do anything," said Butler, who eventually quit. "I felt alone." Tantrums, aggression, biting and kicking are becoming increasingly common in preschool, according...

Tonight's episode is about politics. It's pretty funny so far.

We are just days away from the presidential primary season (Thank God!) and there seems to be a late entry into the race for the White House. No, it's not Michael Bloomberg (although they say he wants to), Al Gore (although they really want him to) or Rosie O'Donnell (they really say nothing about her). It's actually nose-picking, glue-eating, bed-wetting, slightly mis-educated Ralph Wiggum. Gosh, he'll fit right in, won't he? Ralph will announce his candidacy on the January 6th episode of The Simpsons. Actually, he isn't the one who announces it; rather, the voters of Springfield, who reject all...

Homer: D’oh.Ralph: Me fail English? That’s unpossible. Lionel Hutz: This is the greatest case of false advertising I’ve seen since I sued the movie “The Never Ending Story.” Sideshow Bob: No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and lived to tell about it.Troy McClure: Don’t kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about!Comic Book Guy: The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity…Homer: Oh, so they have Internet on computers now!Ned Flanders: I’ve done everything the Bible says — even the stuff that contradicts...

LONDON (Reuters) - The upcoming Simpsons movie takes a typically irreverent dig at religion and environmentalists, and features a nude scene involving 'toon teen Bart that had the audience at a preview show applauding. A 10-minute clip from "The Simpsons Movie," the first time Homer, Marge, their family and friends have made it to the big screen, was shown in London late on Wednesday ahead of its release worldwide later in July. The clip offered several clues as to the plot, suggesting that the environment and religion would me a major themes. Rock band Green Day is booed and pelted...

EAGLE POINT — A first-grader was suspended Tuesday for drawing a stick figure shooting another in the head with a gun and allegedly threatening students. Little Butte School officials sent 6-year-old Ryan Weathers home after receiving complaints from parents saying he threatened their children, said Douglas Weathers, the boy's father. "He's not a violent kid," Weathers said. "He did not mean any harm." School district officials declined to comment. State law bars them from discussing disciplinary actions against specific students. The disciplinary report given to Weathers stated the reason for the suspension was the boy "threatened to shoot two girls...

The Simpsons have been on TV for eighteen years—the second-longest running primetime program behind 60 Minutes. So unless you've been in the Peace Corps for a good chunk of that time or simply don't watch any television, you probably already have an opinion about America's favorite animated family. The show's creators know this, and, in a stroke of genius, use it to their advantage in the uproariously funny self-aware opening to The Simpsons Movie. Let's face it. Most television shows don't translate well to the big screen, and that's especially true for 15- or 30-minute cartoons that don't have the...

July 30 – Homer Simpson is a real person. I know this from personal experience. With the movie out now, it’s a good time to tell this story. In 2002, my friend Peter invited me to be his guest at the taping of Bravo’s Inside the Actors Studio on the campus of New York University in the Village. James Lipton presided as always, and it was not the first time I had been to a taping. But this evening is aurally seared into my memory. That night, a first for the show, Lipton interviewed not one person, but an entire...

05:54:36 pm, Categories: Physics, Science and the Arts, Mathematics, 1207 words How a fake word from The Simpsons ended up in a perfectly cromulent string theory paper The Simpsons Movie debuted this weekend to higher-than-expected sales, bearing testament to the show's enduring popularity. If you needed any convincing that after 18 years on the air The Simpsons has thoroughly penetrated the popular consciousness, consider the following usage of the word "embiggen," one of the many fine references with which one Simpsons fan can detect another. The term comes from the 1996 episode Lisa the Iconoclast, in which we learn that...

Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times D. G. Sthar, a manager of the 7-Eleven on 42nd Street, and Yuka Sugahara, 22, of Emerson, N.J., with a cutout of Apu from “The Simpsons.” In Times Square, ...visitors to 345 West 42nd Street are reveling... In “The Simpsons,”...Kwik-E-Mart is a barely disguised 7-Eleven whose Indian owner changes the expiration dates on spoiled food, worships at a shrine for the elephant god Ganesha and is under constant siege by armed robbers. Far from shrinking from the image, 7-Eleven has embraced its inner Kwik-E-Mart... Andy Chaudhari (pronounced CHOW-dree), the 7-Eleven franchise owner on 42nd...

Very possibly the most importent political tool of our time. See what you would look like as a Simpsons cast member!

Woo-hoo! "The Simpsons Movie" has won its name back on the Internet. A UN agency has ruled that ownership of the domain name thesimpsonsmovie.com must be handed to News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox, which owns the rights to the film and the popular TV series. Twentieth Century Fox complained to the World Intellectual Property Organization over the use of the film's name in the Internet address of a site registered by Keith Malley of New York. Fox lawyers claimed Malley was using the address to divert Internet users to a website that included sexually explicit depictions of several characters from...

A recent article by writer Manish Vij, The Apu travesty in The Guardian has stirred up something of a hornets nest of controversy as was chronicled here in NewsBusters. Vij took a strictly PC approach and condemned the portrayal of Apu from "The Simpsons" as being racist. However, his opinion is far from universal among people of ethnic Indian background. Journalist Saptarshi Ray who is based in the Washington, D.C. bureau of The Guardian has a very different view of the Apu character in his response, The wonder of Apu: Apu may run the local shop, he may indulge in some jiggery-pokery with...

CERNE ABBAS, England, July 19 (UPI) -- A 180-foot-long drawing of Homer Simpson next to an enormous, sacred carving in Dorset, England, has angered pagans, Sky News reported Wednesday. The group has vowed to do a little "rain magic" to wash away the cartoon character, which was rendered with biodegradable paint on a hillside next to the famous 17th Century fertility symbol, the Cerne Abbas giant. The picture of Homer Simpson eating a doughnut was etched alongside the chalk outline of the naked, club-wielding giant as a publicity stunt to promote the upcoming release of "The Simpsons Movie."

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Peter DeFazio sent an angry letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, calling for an investigation. These days, that's not a rare move for a Democratic congressman. But the Springfield Democrat's complaint is, uh, different. Let's just say he probably won't be seeking public office in Vermont any time soon. The full text of the letter is after the jump. -- Jeff Kosseff Alberto R. Gonzalez Attorney General Office of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Building 950 Pennsylvania, N.W. Washington D.C. 20530-2000 Heidely Ho Attorney General Gonzales: I write to you to express the outrage that I, and...