ANIMATION OF THE WEEKEND: The "Simpsons"/FOX News brouhaha

If Comedy Central won't hire the Taiwanese artists at Next Media Animation, then former "Simpsons" writer Conan O'Brien -- himself a recent target of their overseas spoofage -- certainly should bring them to TBS.

For consecutive weekends, of course, Fox's "The Simpsons" lobbed mischievous grenades at corporate cousin Fox News with satirical signage. One of the animated show's pointed jokes -- lettering on a Fox News copter that read: "Not Racist, but #1 With Racists" -- drew pundit Bill O'Reilly's smiling retort. "The Simpsons" followed up last weekend with a gag about Fox News's graying demographic.

Now, Next Media Animation satirizes the whole silly business by rendering the bigger picture: As O'Reilly launches a "pinhead" brick and writers for "The Simpsons" are depicted as "liberal-leaning" hippies, the honcho of the entire Fox empire -- News Corp. big cheese Rupert Murdoch -- is shown guffawing all the way to the bank. (Favorite touch: NMA has previously depicted Murdoch as an Australian shark; in the new video, "Simpsons" writers are shown literally jumping the shark-finned Murdoch.)

"The Simpsons" has managed to continually make headlines this season, from its Fox News jokes to its sweatshop "couch gag" by British street artist Banksy. "Simpsons" show-runner and executive producer Al Jean told Comic Riffs of the video virality of Banksy's opening. "We were totally surprised that it caught on so big,"

On Sunday night, "The Simpsons' " seasonal special, "The Fight Before Christmas," featured the omnipresent "pop star-slash-fashionista" Katy Perry in a live-action sequence -- with the cartoon's 2-D characters appearing instead as 3-D "muppets." Spoofing her recent too-steamy-for-"Sesame Street" appearance scrubbed by cleavage-fearing PBS, Perry on Sunday traded in Elmo for Moe the bartender -- and traded in sexual innuendo -- for her Fox cameo.

And with that, we expect "The Simpsons" to make yet a few more headlines come Monday.

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