Family Guy

Cover of Issue 458 of Mad Magazine.

Family Guy is an American animated television series about a dysfunctional family in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island. It was created by Seth MacFarlane for Fox Broadcasting Company in 1999. The show uses frequent "cutaway gags", jokes in the form of tangential vignettes that do not advance the story.

The show is criticized for using story premises and humor similar to those used in episodes of The Simpsons, another animated series on the Fox network. Numerous writers associated with The Simpsons, such as Matt Groening, Al Jean, David X. Cohen, Matt Selman, Tim Long, and Joel H. Cohen have made fun of Family Guy during public appearances, in interviews and on DVD commentaries.

"You know, it's funny. Matt Groening and I actually have a great relationship. We've talked several times in the past few weeks and joked about this. One day out of nowhere this rumor pops up in papers and magazines. Actually, it was probably one comment that was taken out of context in Blender. Matt's just a cool guy, and fortunately neither of us was ruffled by any of that stuff. We just laughed it off."

―Seth MacFarlane

"The rivalry is very affectionate. Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, is a good guy and he does great work, and I certainly have no problem with the perceived competition. If anything, we have the same kind of competition that Pugsley Addams and Eddie Munster had in the old days. They duked it out a few times, and so did Seth and I, but that's probably before your time. I think Family Guy and American Dad have definitely staked out their own style and territory, and now the accusations are coming that The Simpsons is taking jokes from Family Guy. And I can tell you, that ain't the case."

―Matt Groening

According to the DVD commentary in the Family Guy episode Movin' Out (Brian's Song) Fox cut the scene which makes a extended reference to The Simpsons.FOX refused to air it on the basis that they wanted "the feud" between him and Matt Groening. Seth goes onto say that there is no feud, and claims its only when Family Guy does a joke about The Simspons, not when the Simpsons make a joke about Family Guy, it gets cut and that Fox are afraid of James L. Brooks. According to him, both Al Jean and James L. Brooks were upset over the scene, but Matt Groening apparently liked it, and Fox cut it from the final version, ruining the end of the first act of that episode. The full version of the scene was shown on Adult Swim and on DVD's.

References in The Simpsons

• At the end of "Missionary: Impossible", Betty White entreats viewers to help keep "this crude, low-brow programming" on the air, while the television next to her says "Family Guy".
• In "Treehouse of Horror XIII", Homer creates an army of clones of himself that are each progressively dumber than the real Homer. One of the clones is shown to be Peter Griffin.
• In "The Italian Bob", swipes are taken at both Family Guy and Seth MacFarlane's other creation, American Dad!. In trying to identify Sideshow Bob, the Italian police look through a book of criminals, in which there are pictures of Peter Griffin (accused of "Plagiarismo") and Stan Smith (accused of "Plagiarismo de plagiarismo").

The Simpsons references in Family Guy

• In the episode PTV the opening is a parody of the Naked Gun movies, with Stewie on a tricycle, at the end Homer Simpson is being chased into his garage as in the opening sequence to The Simpsons, with Homer being flattened by the bike. Peter then opens the door to the garage and remarks, “Hey, Stewie!...Who the hell is that?” (originally, Peter was supposed to imitate Homer Simpson running a la the opening sequence to The Simpsons, but the crew thought it was funnier if they used Homer instead as Seth MacFarlane is a Simpsons fan, despite the supposed rivalry between Seth MacFarlane and Matt Groening).
• In Peterotica , the Tracey Ullman Show cut-away is a reference to The Simpsons, who had their own filler on that show before having their own TV series. Noteworthy is the family’s poorly drawn appearance and unrefined voices, which are similar to the way The Simpsons characters were portrayed on Ullman’s show.
• In the episode Movin' Out(Brian's Songs), a gag, which was cut from the Fox broadcast, shows a banner saying The Simpson's Sundays on Fox come up during a scene with Marge. Family Guy character Glenn Quagmire comes in and tries to have sex with Marge. Marge runs of, with Quagmire following. Then Marge and Quagmire come back, and talk about how good it was, and decide to go back to The Simpson's house, with the main characters looking at them. While at the Simpson's house, Homer walks in on Marge and Quagmire. Quagmire panics and shoots Homer. Marge is about to call the police when she gets shoot as well. Then Bart, Lisa and Maggie all also get shot.
• In the song from the episode Lois Kills Stewie, one of the lines is:The guy who watched The Simpsons in 1994, and won't admit the damn thing isn't funny any more.
• In the episode The Juice is Loose , Mayor Adam West is seen talking to someone off the screen and leads the viewer to think he is talking to OJ Simpsons, who is in the town, when he says: "We don't want you in our town Simpson. We don't love you like we did back in 1993... The screen cuts to Homer Simpson who says his trademark "D'oh". Then finishes with "And we don't want you here either OJ!"This references 1993 as "The Simpsons" heyday and what is widely considered the peak of the show as well the year before the trial for the alleged crime happened.
• In the episode FOX-y Lady when trying to sell his cartoon the Handi-Quacks to Fox, he says it will says Simpsons.