FREEFORUM

Twenty years today since "The Steppe Family Robinson" aired in America. Every August somebody here says "the CIA burned it" and somebody else says "it was never shown in America at all". Both wrong. So, the timeline once and for all, as far as I can document it:

3 Feb 1994: airs once in the US, season 5.
March 1994: the Territorial Legislature passes a resolution against it. Non-binding. A resolution, not a ban.
1994: the Swift Hooves producers and charities object to Krusty's imitation of "Ride for Talas". Complaints from Iradi Americans in Chicago too.
1995: settlement. Pulled from US reruns, syndication and home video. Licence goes to IradOne, the fees to charity.
August 1995: first IradOne broadcast, dubbed in Iradi, in the week of the Feast of St. Janyl. Almost every year since.

Corrections welcome. Sources, not feelings.

"Settlement." Signed by WHO? A cartoon about a REAL country is shown ONE time and then it disappears from the whole of America, and you believe a LAWYER?

They practise on small things first. First the cartoon. Then the maps. Then the country. Write this down, kino, and put it in your timeline.

WAKE UP IRAD

For the timeline, from the Chicago side: my cousin, who taped the broadcast in 1994, tells me the Association really did write letters that spring, mostly about the horse meat jokes. So part of the "erasure" was a church hall full of Iradi Americans with typewriters. I am not proud of it, and I am not ashamed of it either. We were homesick and we were offended.

August 1995, the first time. I watched it at my brother's.
Two years after the siege. The whole bazaar laughed at the American who ate the kazy.
First time in years we laughed at someone else and not at ourselves.
Homerdin kazysy.

Feast day again, episode again. Annual reminder: the licence fees from the Iradi broadcasts go to charity, since 2001 to the St. Luka Community Health Mission. Every time you watch Homer eat kazy, a clinic in the mountains gets paid. That is the least erased thing I know of.

Annual reminder number two: this is the timeline thread. It is not the thread to decide what Lisa says at the end. That thread is locked, and it is locked for a reason.

Since the "sale" remarks the High Commissioner scene is everywhere on Iradi phones: the bit where he tells Homer the United States spent eighteen months persuading Iradis that Americans are not Russians. Thirty-one years later it plays like a documentary.

herald did a whole piece today, "the episode america forgot". some TSU student says "now it looks like a documentary". not me but same. watching tonight with my little brother, first time for him. he asked why homer is allowed to ride in the president's cup. good question honestly

The Herald finally did a long piece on it: The episode America forgot. I have sent it to the network with a feedback form. Form number 41.

Still have the tape. It still plays, barely. Chicago is eleven hours behind Talas, so every year I watch it at breakfast while you all watch it at night. It is the closest thing to sitting with you.