Battling Seizure Robots

Japanese cartoon about mighty robots whose flashing eyes cause viewers to have epileptic seizures.

Actually, it was a cartoon featured on an episode of The Simpsons. You know, that sort of funny one where the family goes to Japan and has to get jobs in a fish gutting factory to get home. They all watch the cartoon and go into fits, Marge and the kids by accident and Homer because everyone else was doing it.

This cartoon is no doubt based on a real incident in which a children's cartoon broadcast in Japan had backgrounds of inverting primary colors that were flashing around 15-16 times per second (every two NTSC frames). This frequency is likely to (and did!) trigger epileptic seizures in those susceptible. Apparently, some dozens of children did in fact have mild to severe reactions to the broadcast.

My swiss cheese memory has lost the title of the cartoon; however, I know that this happened in the last couple of years, and that it was eventually broadcast in the U.S. with the backgrounds toned down and the frequency changed.

UPDATE: Break has helpfully informed me that was no less than Pokemon the cartoon which was the culprit. :) From his info, the incident occurred on Dec. 16th, 1997, and resulted in 658 people being hospitalized (more than the 'few dozen' I had thought!) with several hundred required extended hospital stays. Ouch!