In “Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy,” first broadcast on December 4, 1994, Grampa tells Homer that his conception was essentially an accident, brought on by the revitalizing tonic he and Homer have been peddling as part of their traveling medicine show. This leads to the pair arguing, before reconciling at the end of the episode. But prior to their clash, they take a trip to the farmhouse where Homer was raised. During their visit, the pair walk through the living room where they find their original TV. “There she is, the old Radiation King,” announces Grampa, before a wide shot reveals the shadow of a young Homer burned onto the wall of the room. 

The brief sequence references how radium was used in many household items during the ’50s, from toys to appliances, and more specifically refers to a line of GE televisions that, as The Atlantic points out, were found to be emitting “X-radiation in excess of desirable levels.” But the joke also seems to play on the nuclear energy boosterism of the 1950s and ’60s, when atomic power was promoted as holding the key to sustainable energy that would bring about a nuclear-powered utopia and would, according to then-Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis L. Strauss (yes, the same villain played by Robert Downey Jr. in “Oppenheimer”), be “too cheap to meter.”

Of course, that kind of nuclear energy optimism was accompanied by widespread fears of nuclear annihilation, and the utopian vision of atomic energy being peddled by society’s leaders at the time elided a much darker aspect to the whole thing. It’s the same contradiction on which much of the “Fallout” video games are based, which might explain why one of the game’s designers threw in a Radiation King reference.