Piece of the Puzzle: Family Guy S13 E1 - The Simpsons Guy

In which I review the Family Guy / Simpsons crossover episode.

I'll admit it.  I was sucked into the hype going into the episode.  I grew up on The Simpsons and grew into a Family Guy fan while at college.  The thought of throwing the shows, each with its own wildly different brand of comedy, together for a one-hour cross-over was far too perfect for me to pass up.  I knew going into it that it could never live up to the innumerable possibilities that fans have dreamt of over the decades, but I didn't care.  This episode was happening and I was going to be a part of it.

After Peter's popular new comic strip angers the women of Quahog, the Griffins need to leave town for a while.  After their car is stolen outside of Springfield, the Simpsons offer to take them in.  While Homer and Peter hunt down the car thief, Stewie begins idolizing Bart, Lisa helps Meg find something that she's good at, Chris and Brian lose Santa's Little Helper at Krusty Burger and Lois and Marge - who draw the short straws for crossover subplots - go see a movie.  But the families' new friendship is threatened when Homer discovers that Pawtucket Patriot Ale is nothing but a cheap rip-off of Duff.

If The Avengers taught us anything, it's that character-driven crossovers only work when the characters are the focus.  We don't care why the Griffins are in Springfield so long as we can see Homer and Peter swing a few back at Moe's before having a Giant Chicken-styled fight across Springfield.  And, in this regard, the episode was a rampant success.  Despite an overly-long introduction - which is nearly a quarter of the episode's overall length - and a disappointing conclusion, the families' interactions are pure gold.  Homer and Peter's failed attempts at catching the Griffin's car thief, Bart showing Stewie the ropes of being a modern-day delinquent, Lisa joining in Meg's quest for self-worth, Brian's inability to find acceptance as an intelligent member of the family and even Louis' disdain for Marge's concern that the penguins in Surfs Up 2 might drown are all pitch-perfect representations of characters that we've watched develop for upwards of twenty-six years.

More than anything, The Simpsons Guy highlights the inherent incongruity of the two shows.  I don't mean that the comedy stylings themselves are too different to make work together.  In fact, watching Homer's failed attempt at a Family Guy-style cutaway gag was one of the highlights of the episode.   I mean that while Bart and Stewie might seem like the quintessential bad boys of TV, Family Guy has always employed a harder edge for its characters.  While Bart is essentially a twenty-first century continuation of Dennis the Menace - limiting himself to crank calls and petty vandalism - Stewie is downright psychopathic: guilty of assault, battery, predatory lending and murder.  While Bart suffers through his bullies' abuses, Stewie drugs, abducts and tortures them, resulting in Bart's ultimate rejection of their budding friendship.  While Lisa commemorates her newfound connection with Meg by giving her her most valued possession (her saxophone), Meg does so through carving Lisa's name into her arm.  Lois and Brian both reject their counterparts for their insufferable timidity and stupidity respectively, while Homer and Peter's friendship devolves into an all-out brawl.

The episode ultimately falters, however, by placing a greater emphasis on plot over character.  The last quarter of the episode is devoted to a court case between the Pawtucket and Duff Breweries for intellectual property theft: a microcosm of the pissing contest between each show's pettiest fans.  Pairing up similar characters just to cry foul about it and swapping catchphrases back and forth like sloppy seconds - in short, placing greater importance on the mere existence of a crossover than on the situations that organically develop from it - kept the episode from being equal to, let alone greater than, the sum of its parts.

Either unwilling or incapable of rising above their petty rivalry, The Simpsons Guy is a sadly average-quality episode for both of its component shows.  Funny, but never hilarious - clever, but never insightful - it never truly rose to the occasion.  Although still a must-see for fans of either show, I ultimately give the episode a 7.5/10.

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