Government

Fox News Put Simpsons Clips On Exhibit List In Case You Were Wondering How Little They Expected To Go To Trial

'Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals.... Except the weasel.'

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the-simpsonsNBC News reports that Fox News included four clips from the Simpsons on its “lengthy” list of defamation trial exhibits. This is a real thing that happened. This means that Fox’s legal team got reamed by the judge for neglecting to disclose that Rupert Murdoch held a position at Fox News, because they were so busy building an airtight defense based on Homer Simpson gags.

So color us unsurprised by the settlement.

Per the report:

The clips in question each include scenes in which Homer Simpson votes in a presidential election:

— Season 20’s “Treehouse of Horror XIX” shows him attempting to cast a ballot for Barack Obama.

— The promotional short “Homer Votes 2012” shows him voting for Mitt Romney.

— The YouTube short “Homer Votes 2016” features Russian President Vladimir Putin disguising himself as an American voter and trying to convince Homer to vote for Trump.

— Season 32’s “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” finds Homer unsure whether to vote for Trump or Biden.

The Dominion case claimed that Fox News flogged falsehoods about Dominion’s role in the 2020 election, knowing that Dominion had not actually “stolen” anything because the 24/7 white grievance news cycle wanted to hear that Donald Trump had won and Fox News didn’t want to lose viewers to Newsmax and OAN based on trifles like “facts.”

How did Homer fit into this?

Presumably, Fox News wanted to argue that the “fanciful entertainment” side of Fox — which for the sake of this trial it’s now willing to claim includes Tucker Carlson and the rest of Fox News primetime — makes jokes about voting machines stealing elections and voter ID scandals and does it all with a vaguely liberal bent. “Over on channel 5, our entertainers said voting machines change votes in favor of REPUBLICANS, so you see, it’s really no different than hosting Rudy Giuliani to say that voting machines changed votes in favor of Democrats because a literal news channel and a cartoon are both unmistakably just for fun, right?”

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Also, why an organization so hellbent on maintaining a corporate veil that it declined to mention that Rupert Murdoch actually worked there would think Fox network clips got them out of Fox News trouble is beyond me.

So ultimately, Fox News decided to eschew those Simpsons clips and settle. So in a sense, they took guidance from Homer after all:

 

D’oh-minion: Fox’s exhibit list includes four clips from ‘The Simpsons’ [NBC News]

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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