Fury over city's image

Rio de Janeiro's tourist board is threatening to sue The Simpsons.

It has taken legal advice about a new episode which shows Homer being robbed by street kids and kidnapped by an unlicensed taxi when the family visits the Brazilian city.

The episode Blame it on Lisa also shows Bart being swallowed by a giant snake near the Sugar Loaf Mountain, and rats stopping people crossing the road.

But the city claims it undermines a multimillion-dollar campaign to attract visitors - even though Riotur president Jose Eduardo Guinle is understood not to have seen the episode.

However tourist chiefs are not particularly bothered by the image of Rio as a crime-ridden ghetto.

A spokesman said: "What really hurt was the idea of the monkeys, the image that Rio de Janeiro was a jungle. ... It's a completely unreal image of the city."

In 1999, Rio had a murder rate of 69 per 100,000 people, almost nine times as high as New York and 35 times higher than Tokyo.

Published: 9 Apr 2002