City tourism officials plan to sue the producers of the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” about its depiction of Rio de Janeiro in a recent episode, according to a report in O Globo, a daily newspaper.

In the episode, “Blame it on Lisa,” broadcast March 31 in the United States, the family travels to Rio to find a missing orphan that middle child Lisa Simpson sponsors from a distance.

The Simpsons

Brazilian critics decried the use of cliches and stereotypes in the episode, as well as the mixing of Brazilian elements with broader Latin American themes.

For example, the Brazilians on the show danced conga, instead of the samba, had Spanish accents, instead of Portuguese, and wore mustaches; most Brazilian men are clean-shaven.

In the episode the Simpson father, Homer, is kidnapped by a taxi driver, the family is assaulted by begging Brazilian children on a beach, and the family visits Rio de Janeiro slums infested by violent monkeys.

Tourism Secretary Jose Eduardo Guinle asked the lawyer for Rio’s tourism agency, Riotur, to file suit in U.S. courts for damages caused to the city’s image.

Riotur has invested $18 million to promote the city around the world, officials said.

Brazil is not the first foreign nation to be the target of the zany satire that has made “The Simpsons” the longest-running animated series on U.S. television.

Earlier this season, “clean, bland” Canada and its ingrained insecurities were riffed and ridiculed by the yellow-skinned Simpson family, while Australia, Britain, Japan and France have been targeted in past episodes.