Just to explain my responses on this recent thread:

Since posting in this thread, I have for the first time, checked it from a different computer. Now for the first time I see the simpsons hotlinking cartoon which you were referring to. Only now do I realize what you were seeing on your screen. The whole time, I was getting the real gif on mine, without any problems.

That's why I responded with "Still don't get it - that's the same as my original link". (I was still getting the proper gif, you see). Well it seems anyway, that you understood this with "Some sort of hotlinking trap" but I'm mentioning all this just in case you thought I was being unusually thick. In other words, I had no hotlink problems from my own computer.