i was driving from there to here late one night (somewhere this side of amarillo) and listening to whatever they were broadcasting with 9 million watts of power out of mexico, hoping da wolfman would show up sooner than later.  it was the only station i could pick up and what passed for a format consisted of four 15-minute segments, each hosted by a different preacher.  it was my first introduction to the reverend ike...but the real star was the guy after him who was offering something very special in return for every donation of a dollar or more.  it was a cross that, we were told, should be first held up to a bright light and then taken into a totally dark room where it would begin to glow of its own accord.  the preacher (i wish i'd paid attention and knew his name but..) proclaimed, "folks...we don't know how this works...we can only assume its a mur-a-cul."  

it was also a mur-a-cul i didnt kill myself cuz i was laffin so hard i nearly drove off the highway.

the simpsons have been doing it for a long while.  perhaps the question should be: why is it only animated characters are permitted to speak so freely (and hilariously)?

hmmmm altho ill cop to more and more frequent episodes of what i used to refer to as 'early onset senility' (ive gradually come to accept it for what it really is: post-pre-sclerotic situational amnesia), i still have vaguely clear memories of my father and my younger sisters deriving equal enjoyment from different levels of jay ward's absurd vision of the world.  the shows were in reruns long enough for me to see it from both perspectives.

the simpsons quite frequently skewer fox, murdoch and their collective pomps & works (it really is a strangely contradicted network--'in living color' did stuff that was way edgier than anything snl has ever put on the air).  what really cracks me up about the simpsons is the way they poke holes in--and fun at--the pomposity of organized religion and corporate america.  no ordinary sitcom would be able to pull that off and keep sponsors but somehow homer et al manage to do it and nobody seems the wiser.  if you havent done so (im sure you have but...), check em out--or do it again (the early evening reruns will do) for at least three episodes.  (btw another really cool thing about the show is its plot/subplot/subsubplot/subsubsubplot complexity--i can only think of 2 other series that attempted and succeeded at that)