Home Simpson works at a nuclear power plant. Safety issues are often played for laughs.
50 Cent and Gilbert Gottfried learned it the hard way: Leave the dumb, morbid jokes about Japan in your head.
What about The Simpsons, which, much to our delight, has had Homer screwing up routinely and spectacularly at the Springfield power plant for years?
Although none of the show's nuclear jokes are fresh, broadcasters in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany are reviewing episodes and pulling those with gags that could be deemed insensitive in light of Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
An Austrian network has reportedly pulled two episodes. One, called "On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister," includes wisecracks about a nuclear meltdown.
The Springfield nuclear plant is a major landmark on the show, and Homer's bungling approach to safety even makes an appearance in the opening sequence, where he chucks a spent nuclear rod out the window of his car.
And let's not forget the cracked cooling towers looming outside of Mr. Burns's office, or Blinky, the soggy, radioactive, three-eyed fish.
Executive producer Al Jean said he respects the concerns: "We have 480 episodes, and if there are a few that they don't want to air for awhile in light of the terrible thing going on, I completely understand that," Mr. Jean told Entertainment Weeky.
"We would never make light of what's happening in Japan."
Do you think this is an appropriately empathetic gesture on the part of Fox, or an oversensitive one? Does it raise considerations about how people should process their private reactions to the crisis in Japan?