Does Bill O'Reilly Think The Simpsons Are Real?

[Negatempest]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary:_Impossible

For those that may have forgotten. I seem to be unable to find the clip of the ending of the episode. But yes, this is nothing new but it doesn't stop from being funny. Why? Because Fox News tends to be on one heck of a high horse. I like jabs on high horse corporations, people, or governments (including the United States).

 

[qbanknight]

Fucking seriously O'Reily? A fucking cartoon?

 

[clicketycrack]

Wow. The ridiculous amount of hate everyone is spewing is pretty funny. You treat Fox News like a super villain.

Wow... am I the only one who thinks O'Reilly was just joking here. Of all the commentators on Fox, he actually has a decent sense of humor about himself and just look at the smirk on his face when he says the "pinheads" line.

I think it pretty obvious this was all in jest.

I thought so as well.

 

[Evilsanta]

He reacts now? Hasnt The Simpsons taken shots at Fox for a long time.

And he reacts now?! Way to catch up Bill.

 

[Falseprophet]

Bill, what are you doing? Why are you wasting time with this animated nonsense? Shouldn't you be gearing up for the annual War on Christmas(tm)? Those holiday ornaments [http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/20051201/fox_news_holiday_ornaments.jpg] aren't going to sell themselves!

Christmas! I meant Christmas ornaments!

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

This news article is not suited for this type of site and is a clearly misplaced jibe at a much-hated media network. I'm not a fanatic fan of Fox News, but this article is entirely nonsensical. A. This is a gaming site and this is totally out of context. B. It is heavily politically charged. C. The author is purposefully misinterpreting the words here.

You know what, I can make a sensationalist media article off of this one. My title will be; "Gaming Journalist Attempts to Diagnose Bill O'Reilly as Schizophrenic and Talking to Cartoons." Then I can publish it on a site about gardening.

 

[Pyode]

-snip-

I think O'Reilly is overreacting a little bit here, but not much. The video of that girl is blatant exploitation and I do think it's pretty fucked up that her parents would put her up to it (and you know they did, that video damn well wasn't the kids idea).

I don't think I would call it child abuse like O'Reilly does, but it's scarily close to it. Along the lines of Hollywood "stage moms" and WBC style religious fanatics.

-snip-

Thank you. It's good to see at least one person on here who won't blindly jump on the "let's hate FOX" bandwagon.

There are a lot of reasons to have problems with FOX and O'Reilly, but this video is far from one of them.

 

[Tiswas]

Well it's not the first time Fox has been the butt of their jokes is it?

I remember futurama.

Farnsworth: Good news! The people at box got sacked for doing a bad job! (something like this.)

Zoom into Box Tower. The B starts fading away to Fox

 

[Amarsir]

The Simpsons has always made jibes about Fox. It's good natured. They do it because, being ON Fox, they can get away with it.
If they mocked another network, especially in the earlier years, it would be a potential lawsuit. And it wouldn't be quite as funny.
This is like self-depreciative humour.

Hang on there. Jokes about Fox are self-deprecating, and yes they've done that since the beginning. It's good for the show and the network, and can be pretty funny. (A personal favorite was the one where voice recognition software hears Homer say "what is this crap?" and looks up "Fox Broadcasting".)

However, a couple years ago the show took a very bitter and substanceless downturn with ad-hominem attacks against Fox News, the network that doesn't show them. It's not self-deprecating because it says nothing about the Simpsons or the broadcasting thereof. It's a bunch of Liberal writers making substanceless attacks political opponents who are only tangentially related. There's a huge difference between "they show crap including us" and "they sure show crap on the channel without us."

And it's vague substanceless insults, not real humor or satire. "#1 with racists" isn't a joke. It's an
attack on people they don't like, which will resonate with other people who don't like them. The targeted reaction is not laughter, but "whoo! I hates them too!" I would much rather they specifically parody something O'Reilly says, a la Stephen Colbert, than throw out a vague but divisive insult and pretend it's humor. (And this is in no way unique to The Simpsons or the left, but they're the subject here.)

Now as for the phrasing ... c'mon, seriously? We're hearing a paraphrase of a snippet of a reference, and from that we're going to parse the words to consider the possibility that O'Reilly might not understand what animation is? If we're going to criticize him that's fine. But wouldn't we want to showcase intelligence and respectfulness when doing so?

 

[porschecm2]

Really? This is newsworthy? I expected better from Escapist articles than a vague "what he said *could* be construed as a little disparaging...." Even if it is everything this article hints at, that STILL doesn't make this newsworthy.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Fuck Fox, seriously. I'm tired of Fox being allowed to continue its reign of terror with its shitty programming and terrible news coverage. They pride themselves on their glass-box pundits who just sit in an empty room spouting their opinion without any fact-checking or real-time feedback. Their reporters and anchors still have an understanding of modern technology roughly equal to that of a time traveler from 1955 (great scott!) and either milk sympathy by pretending to be bullied and taken advantage of or just exaggerate the opinions of others so they seem insane or evil and respond only to the straw-man they set up.

They also have a terrible habit of stifling good ideas because they are simply not as marketable and don't appeal to the lowest common denominator. I'm talking about Firefly, Futurama, Arrested Development. Shows that had a devoted following and were critically acclaimed for being new and fresh ideas, but got canned by Fox execs due to terrible marketing decisions on their end of the deal. Canceling a show due to low ratings because you showed the episodes out of order, canceled half of them and put the rest in absolutely retarded time-slots is shitty business, and something which has done more harm to the medium than any censorship could.

But wait, there's more! Just take a look at their Sunday night animation line-up, which consists of a Simpsons, which died of old age 8 years ago and has since just been propped up in a chair as Fox cashes its social security checks, Family Guy, which is quite fine living off 80's nostalgia, fake controversy and serving as an outlet for McFarlane (or whoever is writing it these day, so maybe manatees) to express his political opinion through the liberal douche that is Brian, as well as the Cleveland Show and American Dad, which are various flavors of Family Guy that are supposed to be "edgier" but instead are even safer and more focused on issues that either were solved years ago or simply not very controversial.

 

[DoW Lowen]

"We're unbalanced, it's not fair" hahahah.

Oh man, I laughed hard at that. Simpsons, still making laugh since episode one.

 

[DayDark]

Hahahaha!

"AH! We're unbalanced! It's not fair!!"

HAHAHA!

 

[direkiller]

-snip-

I think O'Reilly is overreacting a little bit here, but not much. The video of that girl is blatant exploitation and I do think it's pretty fucked up that her parents would put her up to it (and you know they did, that video damn well wasn't the kids idea).

I don't think I would call it child abuse like O'Reilly does, but it's scarily close to it. Along the lines of Hollywood "stage moms" and WBC style religious fanatics.

-snip-

Thank you. It's good to see at least one person on here who won't blindly jump on the "let's hate FOX" bandwagon.

There are a lot of reasons to have problems with FOX and O'Reilly, but this video is far from one of them.

I posted it as a take from it what you will video.

I hate O'Reilly simply because he brings people on to ether agree with them or to yell at them then promptly sticks his finger in his ears going lallalala i can't hear you. Not for what he said on the video.

 

[Champion Head Boy]

O'Reilly gets paid to rake muck, not make jokes. Making joke and showing a clip doesn't fit the formula of Bill's show, and it never has. What does fit his formula is overreacting to something that goes against his or his show's established moral code. He's smiling because he is trying to keep a cool head about it, but it's pretty clear from his history that O'Reilly thinks the joke is in poor taste. Which is sad, because it is really funny, and Fox should be able to laugh at himself.

Let's not forget, Bill O'Reilly regularly represents the views and opinions of an entire generation of Americans who thought Bart Simpson was going to corrupt our nation's youth simply by talking back to his parents. It was on the documentary about the Simpsons; before Family Guy, South Park, et. al., the Simpsons was one of the culturally edgiest shows out there, and people took offense to it left and right.

I don't think Elizabeth meant he literally believes the characters are real; she's hyperbolizing. It strikes me as a good writing technique, because all Fox news does is over-exaggerate and sensationalize stories that aren't worthy of the attention, so making fun of them in that manner only seems appropriate.

 

[MasterChief892039]

I wasn't under the impression that O'Reilly thought the cartoon characters themselves were responsible for their jokes, but I am under the impression that Bill thinks that because the Simpsons has traditionally aired on Fox, that the show is supposed to be some sort of puppet for the network rather an independently created cartoon.

Funny how Bill O'Reilly loves free speech when he wants to call the president a socialist Nazi, and gets offended when someone uses it to take a jab at his joke of a news network.

 

[Generic_Dave]

I think what people need to realise is that FOX doesn't care. Doesn't care about its viewers, doesn't care about its politics, doesn't care about the programming. In fact they don't even really care about republicans or values voters. They care about money. FOX News rakes in money, the Simpsons rakes in money, appealing to Republicans rakes in money (both through advertising and through lenient tax breaks etc...).

I think the Banksy episode of The Simpsons shows this even more than this FOX news vid. At the end of the day, one can't assume that any organisation that is for-profit believes in anything but that profit. Something for values voters to chew on...still MSNBC or any of the rest are hardly any better...or Activision...or Ubisoft...as much as we may want to believe that the companies which produce things we like have similar views of the world, or similar attitudes to us. They don't, and if you think they do...well, that company just has great PR and brand management.

 

[Logic 0]

Oh Bill you insult your company's biggest money maker.

 

[mr_rubino]

It was unclear whether he was referring to the cartoons themselves or the Fox executives

It's only unclear to you if you're looking for a reason to hate Bill O Reilly. This is nothing. Anyone who watch O Reilly knows his Pinheads and Patriots segment has been used to highlight less serious news stories.

I enjoy reading stories like these. The stories when the headline is something like DID O REILLY JUST KICK A BABY DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS? Because it tells me which journalists have a bias against Fox. Inevitably it's just a circle jerk of Fox-haters agreeing with each other, proclaiming it's some big thing when no one really cares. Then people like me make posts like this and we are inevitably pigeonholed as Fox-loving neo-cons.

As well you should. If all you can do is spit out hyperbolic language, anecdotes so overwrought that noone believes them, and generally hold yourself above everyone else as a paragon of independent thought when you're doing nothing countless others don't do every time someone so much as mentions Fox News, what makes you so different from a Fox News talking head? =P

 

[Pyode]

-snip-

The fact of the matter is that 90% of the posters in this thread made up their mind before they even finished reading the title. Most (if not all) have probably never even seen more then a small, out of context, clip of him on YouTube and yet they act like he's Satan incarnate.

I already tried pointing out on the first page that this clip was obviously just O'Reilly joking around, but it still goes over most peoples heads.

The thing that angers me the most though isn't the random people on the internet posting (I've come to expect this sort of thing from them), but the "journalist" who thought this was actual news and the editor that let it go to print. These people are supposed to be professionals and the fact that this story got the green light is a disgrace.