'The Simpsons' Halloween special banned in New Zealand

An episode of the American animated sitcom, “The Simpsons” has been banned in New Zealand due to censorship issues. The ban has been controversial among fans in the country due to it also being a milestone episode.

What happened with the ban in New Zealand?

Local network TVNZ has announced that they will skip to episode 601 after airing episode 599. Episode 600 was one of the show's popular "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween episodes, which featured parodies of "The Hunger Games" and the "James Bond" film franchise.

It had originally been believed that the episode was aired out of order due to the timely nature of being a Halloween special, but a spokesperson for the network later confirmed that it was due to censorship issues. While it is unconfirmed at this time what exact content caused the episode to be pulled from airing, depictions of death and violence, including depicting children being killed, is speculated to be the reason. In the first short, “Dry Hard,” a parody of the aforementioned “Hunger Games” series revolves arounds children being killed in battle. The second short “BFF R.I.P.” features an imaginary friend of Lisa killing the kids who want to be friends with her out of jealousy.

Fans had become upset with the ban of the episode due to the fact that the show was a milestone 600th episode. The episode, which already aired last year in the United States, would have played this upcoming Sunday.

Has the show ever been censored like this before?

For a show as long-lived as “The Simpsons,” foreign broadcasts of the show censoring content, including outright banning entire episodes from airing, is nothing new.

In the United Kingdom, for example, in addition to jokes often being cut from broadcast, entire episodes that were pulled from airing in their original time-slots, respectively, include "A Streetcar Named Marge," "The City of New York Vs. Homer Simpson," "The Cartridge Family," "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken," "Day of the Jackanapes," "Weekend at Burnsie's," and "Love, Springfield Style." Many of these episodes were later permitted to air within the United Kingdom, either with heavy censorship or by airing it in a late-night time-slot.

Episodes featuring the family visiting foreign countries have also often been banned from airing in countries being depicted. This had been the case with the episode "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo," which has currently never aired in Japan, or been released with an official Japanese language dub.