“I just want to say for the record right now, we’ve seen Family Guy, it’s… it’s… we do hate it. We do hate Family Guy.”
In a video published to YouTube by Comedians ‘R’ Go, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker reveal what we already knew, they’re just not drinking the Family Guy Kool-Aid.
The pair are discussing their 2006-aired episode ‘Cartoon Wars’, which was intended to show off FOX’s censoring of Muhammad, generated a lot of praise from fellow Family Guy haters in the TV industry.
Speaking to Reason.com in 2006, Trey Parker said:
“When we did the Muhammad episode, we got flowers from the Simpsons people because we ripped on Family Guy. Then we got calls from the King of the Hill people saying, ‘You’re doing God’s work ripping on Family Guy.” Even though it was this big political thing about Muhammad and whatever, everyone was just, ‘Thank you for you ripping on Family Guy.’”
In the clip posted to YouTube last month, the pair said, “There’s one thing we always try to avoid in South Park and it’s gags.”
“I think what makes me disappointed about Family Guy is that it really could be an amazing show. You can tell there are smart people working on it […] they need to work harder.”
Listen to Matt Stone and Trey Parker rip on Family Guy below:
The beef between South Park and Family Guy‘s creators is long-running and well-documented. South Park even spoofed Family Guy‘s xenophobic jokes and pop-culture-referencing cutaways by portraying Family Guy staff as manatees). The burn was rebutted with Family Guy‘s Seth MacFarlane depicting Stone and Parker having sex at ‘Anal Point’.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s school of thought does hold a certain weight however. The pair turned their world-view musings into an iconic series over 20 years ago, and upon its broadcast debut in 1997 became the pioneers of ‘mature’ viewing.
South Park entered the TV realm at a time when the Federal Communications Commission had just launched the TV Parental Guidelines, which distinguished “child friendly” programming from “adult content.”
They’re also behind one of the most successful Broadway productions of all time. Book of Mormon grossed over $500 million, and in Sydney, it holds the record for the highest sales in the Lyric Theatre’s 159-year history. It’s also one of the most successful musicals of all time
