The episode, which screened on Fox in the US, featured a mock Fox News ticker along the bottom of the screen and carried fictitious newsflashes such as "Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com", "Study: 92% of Democrats are gay" and "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple".
Groening said in an interview with National Public Radio in the US that Fox News had threatened him with legal action.
He said in the interview: "We did the crawl along the bottom of the screen. Fox said that they would sue the show. And we called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. We got away with it."
'The Simpsons' is famously unafraid of poking fun at the man who owns the company that owns the programme -- News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch. The media baron has even voiced himself in an episode of the cartoon comedy, when Homer gatecrashes Murdoch's "Skybox" at the Super Bowl. One of the headlines on the parodic news ticker was "Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer".
'The Simpsons' is also famous for sending up some of Fox Television's less-than-highbrow content, parodying its programming with invented shows such as 'America's Funniest Tornadoes', 'When Surgeries Go Wrong' and 'World's Deadliest Executions'.
However, according to a report in The Independent, Fox News denies that it was planning to sue. Robert Zimmerman, a spokesman for the channel, said: "We're scratching our heads over here. We liked the cartoon. We thought it was great."
Fox News become the number one news service in the US with its patriotic coverage of the war in Iraq -- although a recent poll said that its viewers were not well informed about the war.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)