A Robert Smigel TV Funhouse cartoon that aired on the March 14, 1998 episode of Saturday Night Live. Animated and sung in the style of the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons from the early 1980's, it is a brilliant critique of monopoly and collusion amongst media corporations, politicians, and the defense industry. It was shown only once on the live broadcast, then pulled from rerun broadcasts, never to be shown again, no doubt due to the incendiary nature of the information it points out about NBC parent company General Electric.
Without actually listing the song's lyrics, it explains that because of FCC deregulation, all media companies are owned by a very small number of companies- those mentioned in the song are Disney, Fox, Westinghouse, and General Electric. Not mentioned in the song is the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which eliminated almost all media ownership regulations. Anyway, when a company owns a media outlet, they can say whatever they want, and discredit the opinions of anyone they want. The song refers to the lack of information on PCB's (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) in major media, when those media companies are owned by energy companies like G.E. and Westinghouse, who own nuclear power plants that dump these chemicals into the Hudson and other rivers. It also points out the lack of coverage of several lawsuits against these companies regarding fraud, defective products, PCB lawsuits, and consumer boycotts.
The material gets even darker when it makes mention of corporate welfare, something I didn't even know existed until I saw the cartoon. These already enormously profitable corporations receive billions of dollars a year in subsidies, which include tax breaks and grants, with the supposed intention of creating jobs. Instead, The corporations spend it on political action committees and "soft money" to support congressmen who, in return, approve big money weapons programs, and turn a blind eye when they dump toxic waste into rivers or, as the song illustrates, children's parks.
The song/skit ends on a funny note, speculating that the reason for firing SNL weekend update anchor Norm MacDonald was due to his jokes about O.J. Simpson, who was friends with a high ranking NBC executive, and adds that the show's creator Lorne Michaels went to the same high school as Marion Barry.