One of the great things about being a dictator is that you control your country’s media. Don’t care for a particular TV show? It’s gone! That’s what Venezuelan “President” Hugo Chavez just did to The Simpsons. He took it off the 11 a.m. timeslot on Venezuela’s Televen network because, according to Times Online:
The National Telecommunications Commission said the show pushed “messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents”…
“It had to be taken off,” said Elba Guillen, a spokeswoman for Televen. “The government considers it to be a series that isn’t appropriate for that time because it isn’t appropriate for children.”
Well, you can’t fault Chavez for that. He’s thinking of the children! So, what wholesome, family-oriented show did he pick to replace that youth-warping garbage?
Yeah, Baywatch! Say what you want about Chavez, but a guy who appreciates a bunch of toned, supple bodies (not to mention Hasselhoff’s) in tight swimsuits running around on a beach can’t be all bad.
Well, okay, maybe he can.
(Thanks to reader Allyson Windham for the tip!)
You know, at first I was like “Ok, that’s an amusing move right there” but then when I really thought about it, it doesn’t seem like THAT silly of a move. Yeah Baywatch is a flufftastic display of stupid. But it’s not actually something kids will watch. I mean, they aren’t going to sit infront of it just because it happens to fall in the same time slot where the cartoons used to be. They will probably change the channel or get bored and wander off. So still, better than the previous I guess.
For a dictator who consistently ‘postures’ against the US government by threathening to stop all exports of oil, he sure likes their TV shows.
I bet I can take that guy in a fight.
The National Telecommunications Commission said the show pushed “messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents”…
That’s a strange way to put it, like adolescents are a third sex or something.