No two comedy fans have the same sense of humor, and everyone is entitled to their own tastes – for instance, some people laugh at puns, others love impressions and a handful of folks who work at Fox think that the funniest punchline possible is just the word “rape.”
For as long as Seth MacFarlane and Family Guy have been copying The Simpsons’ homework, fans of both shows have argued over which is the better animated sitcom about an overweight, low-IQ, heavy-drinking father, a long-suffering and way-too-good-for-him wife, an equally stupid oldest son, a nagging middle-child daughter and a baby with a preternatural capacity for violence. In turn, the writers of both shows respectively have been trading blows for about as long – but, in 2014, their shared patrons at Fox forced them to play nice and perform a one-hour crossover special called “The Simpsons Guy.”
In its time, “The Simpsons Guy” received mixed reviews and barely made waves in the fandoms of both shows. The general consensus on the crossover was that, eight years after MacFarlane landed what is still the lowest blow of the cross-network feud when he had Quagmire rape Marge and murder the rest of the Simpsons in the episode “Movin’ Out (Brian’s Song),” the rivalry between Family Guy and The Simpsons was old news, and the lack of a shared sense of humor didn’t lead to harmony.
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Today, “The Simpsons Guy” mainly serves as a perfect case study in how the two Fox titans differ so wildly in their approach to comedy, and it all comes down to MacFarlane’s favorite four-letter word:
Now, in lukewarm defense of Family Guy, it’s not like the later seasons of The Simpsons are above a lazy, shock-heavy and humor-light rape joke either. In the Season 14 episode “The Strong Arms of Ma,” a roided-out Marge forced Homer to engage in some nonconsensual sex, and that gag is just as tasteless as Stewie’s prank call in “The Simpsons Guy.” However, “The Strong Arms of Ma” is widely considered to be one of the worst Simpsons episodes of all time specifically because of that horrible sexual abuse joke, while gags like Stewie’s “prank” call are par for the course in that other show.
I don’t know what it is about Matt Groening’s masterpiece that brings out the rapey energy in the Family Guy writers’ room, but I’m glad that the Griffins got the hell out of Springfield before they could do any serious damage.Thankfully, this time, Family Guy left Quagmire back in Quahog.
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