Movies - TV
How An Old Simpsons Joke Wound Up In Amazon's Fallout Series
By JOE ROBERTS
There is a brief sequence in the 1994 episode of "The Simpsons," titled "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy," where Grampa Simpson refers to their TV as "the old Radiation King."
This gag subtly references the unsafe levels of radiation emitted by 1950s GE televisions and plays on the era's mix of optimism and the fears of nuclear annihilation.
Leonard Boyarsky, a designer for the original "Fallout" video game released in 1997, included the "Radiation King" TV reference as a pop culture in-joke for his colleague Tim Cain.
It became a recurring element in the series, appearing in multiple games and even leading to the creation of entire Radiation King stores and factories within the game world.
When Amazon adapted "Fallout" into a TV series in 2024, they preserved the joke by featuring a Radiation King TV in episode six, where Aaron Moten's Maximus uses the vintage set.