With television critics lining up to say Family Guy and The Simpsons ain't as good as they used to be, it would have been easy for 'an event'.
A big gimmick, persay, where the two mediums could have attracted attention back upon themselves to bring in the ratings and insist they still had something to say. Family Guy has already tried that, with last year seeing the unnecessary killing of Brian Griffin.
When it was first announced Fox's two animated titans were going to fuse together for one comedy event, it was easy to sneer at it. Many say The Simpsons has not been of high quality since the turn of the century, while Family Guy has failed to reach its earlier heights since Seth MacFarlane's movie career has taken off. Granted, both still have the moments, but we are a long time after the show's respective heydays.
Yet after months of anticipation, engineered controversy, trails, deliberation of its merits and all that other stuff, the return of the two shows sees us presented with this for our amusement.
To understand The Simpsons Guy is to understand two things. Firstly, this is a Family Guy episode with Simpsons voice actors and characters guest starring. Secondly, this spends a lot of time riffing on imitation, which is an accusation Family Guy has frequently been guilty of, and which was once done by The Simpsons themselves in 1996's The Day The Violence Died.
That episode was a smartly done riff that evolved from the Itchy & Scratchy cartoons. This, by contrast, is an attempt to make a TV event.
It starts in fairly standard style. Peter Griffin becomes a newspaper cartoonist who very quickly offends the town's women, so after threats and brick throwing, the Griffins decide to skedaddle, which ultimately sees them get their car stolen from a petrol station on the outskirts of a town filled with yellow people.
This is duly the Griffins in Springfield moment, and the animation together is a very good blending together of the styles to make the Griffin family look like they could actually be there. As the two shows are animated and coloured differently - and not just in the yellow skin - there was enough to make it a challenge to make them look like they could exist alongside on screen, so the animators do get commendation for their part.
The bits in Springfield are largely centred on two pairings - Homer/Peter and Bart/Stewie. The Lisa/Meg pairing only gets two scenes, Marge/Lois are background characters, and there is one scene involving Chris and Brian walking/losing Santa's Little Helper, but the first two get priority, with the first one the main plot.
One criticism of the recent weaker series of Family Guy is the stupidly high number of Peter-centric episodes, which are easy enough to write and create plots for, but harder to make memorable jokes out of.
Its tricky to know if there's a standout gag that would stand up to the heavy duty repetition this will undoubtedly get on repeat channels, but there's enough amusing gags littered throughout. The Bart/Stewie stuff is perhaps the better of it, and may have made a more compelling piece harking back to the Simpson's roots.
After all, it is easy to forget that The Simpsons was, for its first few years, a show centered on Bart, while Family Guy's best episodes are usually focused around Stewie, and there was lots of amusing stuff dotted in the difference between Bart's pranks and Stewie's psychopathic tendencies.
Most of the episode is focused on Homer and Peter, and their pairing is really ramped up the further into the hour we progress. This leads to the big imitation set-piece, with the respective beers - Pawtucket Patriot Ale and Duff Beer - accused of imitation and lacking old quality, which leads to a trial and even a gag of Fred Flintstone as a judge.
This duly spawns that most used of Family Guy gags in the form of the Giant Chicken fight, which sees Homer and Peter spend a whopping eight minutes punching and walloping one another through Springfield. A multitude of characters and Simpsons references spin and out of the fight, including Otto, Ralph Wiggum, Kang and Kodos, Roger from American Dad, and the infamous Springfield Gorge tumble.
The overlong fight is the finalish gag of the whole show, and its an interesting composition when you analyse it as a whole.
There is certainly nothing to dispute such a crossover having taken place, and there are plenty of amusing gags. Certainly, its is absolutely the case that this is much better than anything in the last series of Family Guy, which was a stale regurgitation of much of the stuff that has been in its comic repertoire since the turn of the decade.
It would have been a bit more to see some Simpsons writers given more input. There is certainly some superficial involvement, but this is mainly a Family Guy episode that just happens to be in Springfield. A heavily advised episode that was signed off by Simpsons production staff and had some input from Matt Groening and co, but a Family Guy episode nevertheless.
In truth, it could've used the sleight of hand on the Simpsons side. Family Guy's writing is not as up to scratch as its MacFarlane stable mate and now former channel-mates at American Dad, and there are times when the fusing of writers could have pitched in some better material than standard rape and race material that Family Guy is beating into the ground.
By the time the credits go past, it is certain that there is no problem with the show's existence. There are amusing moments, it looks good and the whole thing does just about seem to work. But it could have provided some more full-on laughs, and maybe in the shows respective heydays it could have done, but here, it could've used some more full on laughs.
Maybe The Simpsons/Futurama crossover in November will provide some.
3.5/5
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