In March of 1998, the popular "TV Funhouse" cartoon segment on "Saturday Night Live" featured one particularly political short called "Conspiracy Theory Rock!". In it, corporations like GE and FOX were depicted as a "media-opoly," and their cartoon figureheads devoured smaller news companies in a scathing "School House Rock" parody (a controversial move at the time, considering GE owned NBC).
It aired once with the original "SNL" episode, and was pulled from syndication because it "wasn't funny," according to "SNL" creator and producer Lorne Michaels, but it got a lot of attention Tuesday when comedian Marc Maron tweeted a link to the video.
The cartoon has since gone viral as a "banned" clip, but according to J.J. Sedelmaier, who created "Funhouse" along with Robert Smigel for "The Dana Carvey Show," the clip was "unavailable for viewing (separate from our studio's reel) for quite some time," but did, however, eventually end up being "included in the "Saturday TV Funhouse" DVD compilation that was released in 2006," which is probably where the video being passed around online was ripped from.
While the segment wasn't technically banned, it is certainly a rarity in the "SNL" canon, and one that still resonates in the age of "Really, Fox News?".
Via Buzzfeed, Splitsider, Natural News
Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that "Conspiracy Theory Rock!" didn't appear in any of the "Saturday Night Live" DVD collections, but it was in fact featured in the 2006 "Saturday TV Funhouse" DVD.
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