You Know What Youd Call the Flinstones if They Were Black T Shirt
They are 2 of the most famous creators in the universe. Their work is quoted almost as often every bit Scripture. They have turned their pens into ATMs, making them richer than the creator of the universe. They take given rise to—and remain the symbolic deities of—two sides of a pop culture fence that is being fervidly argued out on some bulletin board equally y'all read this. Just on this toasty summertime afternoon in Fifty.A., dressed in white shirts, jeans, and sneakers, Matt Groening, the lx-year-old creator/exec producer of The Simpsons (and Futurama), and Seth MacFarlane, the twoscore-year-former creator/exec producer/vocal star of Family unit Guy (and American Dad), are just ii dudes in a room, talking 'toons.
Boot back in Groening's Simpsons office on the Fox lot, the pair shoot the breeze virtually all things animation; the rivalrous human relationship between their shows, both congenital around a slothful, sophomoric patriarch; and that ultra-anticipated hr-long Family unit Guy flavor premiere that will combine the franchises in a true brandish of animation domination. Yeah, on Sept. 28 at 9 p.m. on Fox, "The Simpsons Guy" aims to do something that fans idea unpossible: Take two shows with 37 combined seasons of comedy—the revered elder statesman/pioneer of modern prime-fourth dimension animated humour/marathon champ and its edgier, then-cultishly-honey-that-Pull a fast one on-uncanceled-it, bratty-fratty descendant—and create a giant episode that is more than "Holy crap!" than "D'oh!" (For more information on the episode, click here.)
The extravaganza is as self-deprecating every bit information technology is cocky-aware, winking at criticism that Family Guy ripped off The Simpsons, nodding at crossover cynicism, toying with both shows' signature gags (Stewie saying, "Eat my shorts"), and sneaking in cameos (Bob from Bob'due south Burgers!). The plot? The road-tripping Griffins accidentally wind up in Springfield, where they are befriended past the Simpsons. Stewie is in awe of Bart, and Lisa tries to build Million's cocky-confidence, while Homer and Peter bail over doughnuts before bickering over beer and throwing down in a nuclear craven fight.
But the real coming together of the minds is taking place right here, as Groening and MacFarlane squeeze onto the same burrow for their beginning joint in-depth interview.
EW: Seth, is there anything you were hoping to discover in Matt's office? Anything you'd like to steal?
MACFARLANE: [Looking effectually] Holy due south—. That's a actually awesome dual-cassette thespian. I need i of those.
GROENING: Journeying to the by! [Walks over to cassette player backside his desk] I desire to see what cassettes are in there. [Checks] There are no cassettes.
MACFARLANE: If I demand to brand a tape of one of my CDs, will that practise information technology for me?
EW: [Noticing jar with floating embryonic Bart] Hey, Matt, is that a Bart fetus in a jar?
GROENING: Yes, I gauge it is. Somebody sent united states that.
MACFARLANE: Are those awards? Can I touch i? I've never…
GROENING: You must take all this crap, correct?
MACFARLANE: Yous're much ameliorate at saving stuff than I am. Near of it is in the backseat of my car.
GROENING: Yous've never been in this role before?
MACFARLANE: No, I haven't. I think Dads was over here during the episode and a half it was on the air…. Is that a dual-VHS player?
GROENING: Nil changes.
EW: We have Duff beer correct over there. Are we allowed to crack that open?
GROENING: That is unauthorized beer. The real beer is coming out. Real Duff beer.
EW: Is Pawtucket Patriot Ale coming?
MACFARLANE: I had heard something about it, but I don't know if information technology's happening.
GROENING: What? You don't have your own beer?
MACFARLANE: They don't trust me around alcohol.
GROENING: The show has got to have its own beer, human! That's when you know you lot've made it!
MACFARLANE: I know. We have to follow in the footsteps of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Ale.
EW: What do you remember thinking the first time you saw each other's show?
MACFARLANE: [Pointing at Groening] His testify redirected the form of where I wanted my professional life to get. I wanted to be a Disney animator, and and so The Simpsons came out, and in every style—writing-wise, product-wise, timing-wise, blitheness-wise—information technology but rewrote the rulebook. Suddenly I was laughing out loud at cartoons. We all love the Bugs Bunny cartoons and the Road Runner cartoons, and you admit how great they are and how hilarious they are, just how oftentimes are you really laughing? The Simpsons fabricated me express joy. I was doing stand-up at the fourth dimension and I loved information technology, and I thought, "It's likewise bad there isn't a mode to do adult humor in cartoons." And they just opened that door for everybody. That show came out and I remember thinking, "Oh my God, this is what I desire to do." Information technology's like All in the Family. It's that degree of altering the landscape.
GROENING: And I had gotten into animation considering of Family unit Guy. It's the exact same story! [Laughs] In my mind, growing up, watching animation, I didn't think there would ever exist annihilation good, because it just seemed like in the history of TV blitheness, things got worse and worse. There were some good shows [when I was] growing up, but and then in the '70s and '80s, animation just got so bad on Goggle box, for the most office.
MACFARLANE: Y'all guys literally single-handedly reversed that trend.
GROENING: I saw the pilot episode of Dennis the Menace, and I was so excited that there was a bear witness most a menace that had an animated opening of him as a cyclone a la the Tasmanian Devil. I thought "Oh my god! A child that I can relate to!" And so information technology was Jay Due north and he's a dainty guy… and he had a slingshot in his dorsum pocket, only he never used it. The feeling I got from watching that cyclone in the opening title, that's what I wanted to come across on TV. So, when I got a hazard in 1987 to do cartoons for The Tracey Ullman Evidence, I was originally going to do the Life In Hell rabbits—I'd been cartoon this comic strip. And then I thought, "You know, bunnies… it's not going to make it. It's gotta be humans."
MACFARLANE: He never one time used the slingshot?
GROENING: Oh, I don't know. Mayhap he did.
MACFARLANE: I used to go pissed when I watched Silver Spoons that he never played the video games.
EW: That was such a absurd home arcade.
MACFARLANE: He had, similar, Dragon's Lair, and he merely never went almost them. Information technology didn't occur to me, "Oh, that would non be a skillful episode of television but watching a child play…"
GROENING: See, at present, I think this is the major divergence between us. My reference is to the 1960s and yours is… I don't even know what Silvery Spoons is. Information technology's '80s, right? I didn't lookout man Boob tube in the '80s. That's why I never become your show. (They express mirth.)
MACFARLANE: Believe me, you lot're just fine. Don't go looking for Silver Spoons. That manner lies madness.
EW: And so, Matt, you see Seth'due south show for the first time. What are your thoughts?
GROENING: Here'southward the thing: Y'all understand that at that place are shows that come in your footsteps, right? But generally they're on a competitive network.
MACFARLANE: That'south ane affair we've always tried to do, is come in The Simpsons' footsteps.
GROENING: No, no, wait! Let me back up. First of all, I thought if The Simpsons hitting—and I thought it would exist a hit—my worry was that adults wouldn't sentry because information technology's a drawing and there were no good cartoons on for adults. When that striking, I knew at that place would exist new shows post-obit, and ultimately at that place are all these shows out there now that are creator-driven—that is, they're a vision of somebody who tin draw. It's amazing what's happening in animation now… But getting to Seth, my first have was: Oh my God, we got competition. And they're outflanking united states. This show is wilder and harsher and nastier. We used to get in problem. We used to be the cause of the downfall of the United States.
MACFARLANE: I recollect what used to make people mad when The Simpsons first came out was that Bart is talking disrespectfully to his parents. Remember the outrage?
GROENING: Nosotros got in problem for Bart wearing an "Underachiever and Proud of It, Man" T-shirt. That'due south because cartoons up until The Simpsons had been aimed at children. One of the smartest things that we did was insist that it's for adults, with the idea that there are a lot of smart kids out there who volition become jokes that grown-ups get. Anyway, so for a piddling while, we were like: We gotta hunt your tail! Then you got canceled. Phew!
MACFARLANE: [Laughs] And so everything worked out.
GROENING: You lot guys have completely your ain fashion. At the very beginning you were accused of copying us, and we were accused of copying y'all. So I stopped watching your show just because I didn't want information technology to exist in my head.
MACFARLANE: I'yard the first person to say, stylistically, absolutely, we took 100 cues from The Simpsons. Look at when All in the Family came out. Of a sudden it created a whole new style of doing things. The timing mode of Family unit Guy was directly influenced by The Simpsons because it worked. They cracked that nut.
EW: Let's talk near where your popular-culture influences intersect on a Venn diagram, whether it'due south your honey of a cartoon or classic one-act like All in the Family.
GROENING: (to MacFarlane) Well, I've heard you talk about All in the Family a lot. Of grade, that was large for me.
MACFARLANE: I'chiliad such a huge fan of Jackie Gleason. At least with Peter, I always grab myself from time to time slipping into those cadences. But I will say one of the other things—and nosotros forget this—that The Simpsons made acceptable was using actual pop-culture references in their existent grade….In a way, information technology fabricated those characters feel like they were more in the existent world than anyone on Goggle box. Why I remember this, I have no f—ing clue. I remember seeing an episode of Kate & Allie where Susan St. James fabricated a reference to Punky Brewster. And I was like, "How do you know about other TV shows? You lot're on a Television set testify!" It occurred to me that that'south foreign. And yet it oddly makes the characters seem like they're not in this fictionalized TV country; they're in the same world that I'm in. That was something I noticed when The Simpsons came out.
EW: The Simpsons showed its characters watching TV.
GROENING: Y'all know where that came from? As a kid, watching the pic 101 Dalmatians, the puppies were watching a Western on Boob tube and they're watching a commercial and I went, "Oh my god! The cartoon dogs are watching TV just similar I do!" The idea of a drawing within a drawing, that'southward something that ever stuck with me. Itchy & Scratchy—we take to take it one step further. I desire Itchy & Scratchy to lookout man a cartoon. Merely we haven't done that…. As a kid, I said, "The Munsters and The Addams Family—they should assemble! Pugsley Addams and Eddie Munster—(to MacFarlane) sort of our counterparts—should be pals!" And then, in a way, the Family unit Guy–Simpsons crossover—that'south going to accident some minds.
SM: It'll cause some problems. (They express joy.)
EW: Matt, are your kids Team Simpson or Team Griffin?
GROENING: When my son Abe was 14, he came habitation from schoolhouse and said, "Yous know, everybody at schoolhouse loves Family Guy. And they say Simpsons is over." He was taunting me. I said, "Nosotros were hither before Family unit Guy!" I got really defensive, and he's like, "Yeah, well, Family unit Guy is what everybody likes." I said, "Yeah, tell Family Guy to buy you an Xbox." He said, "I wish Seth MacFarlane was my dad!" That was a joke, and I thought, "That was good for a xiv-yr-old."
MACFARLANE: At the time I was what, perchance 28? That would've but been weird.
EW: Your shows accept taken jabs at each other over the years. Peter was wanted for plagiarism in a Simpsons episode. And Family Guy had a DVD joke in which Stewie sings about "the guy who watched The Simpsons back in 1994 and won't acknowledge the damn matter isn't funny anymore." But information technology seems like the rivalry has grown friendlier. Final flavour Dan Castellaneta and Hank Azaria did cameos on Family Guy, and Seth, you guest-starred on The Simpsons. How competitive did it get betwixt the staffs? Has this all been blown out of proportion?
MACFARLANE: I think that was y'all guys [in the media]. Yous guys loved that southward—. I don't always remember being annihilation just a fan of The Simpsons. When Family unit Guy came out and it found its audition eventually, these were two blithe shows that were sort of the but shows of their kind on Boob tube. So I think there's a natural desire to stir up trouble on the part of the media. I continue to have such regard for that Simpsons writing staff. I always felt that way.
GROENING: I never felt any [animosity]. I accept more in mutual with Seth than I do with everybody I work with. [Laughs] We both created a show, you know? I similar cartoons. I want at that place to be more cartoons. Both shows brand fun of stuff, so we take to make fun of the guy side by side door. If you lot tin make the person who disagrees with the joke express mirth, and then information technology's skilful. If information technology'south just preaching to the choir, then I don't like it as much. That's my measure for doing political jokes on the show: Tin can we make a Republican laugh?
MACFARLANE: We abide by the same rules. Nosotros would never want to upset Sarah Palin.
EW: Let's talk about the crossover. People are joking that hell is freezing over.
GROENING: That's the title, isn't information technology?
EW: Was that one of the many reasons to do information technology? Did you just desire to make fanboys' dreams come up true?
MACFARLANE: I call back it'due south a more practical matter. It'due south: Who was going to be the person to initiate it? Considering both shows are busy and it's a big undertaking. Rich Appel, who wrote for The Simpsons, ran King of the Colina, and is now co-running Family unit Guy—he was the one guy who had lived in both worlds and really spearheaded this.
GROENING: Let's exist honest, we both wanted to do Male monarch of the Colina crossovers.
MACFARLANE: You need somebody who tin can be in that room and say with feel, "No, no, I wrote for this show—that'south non something Homer would say."
EW: There's that meta joke at the outset of the episode where Chris is watching a crossover and says, "A crossover ever bring out the best in each show! Information technology certainly doesn't smack of desperation! The priorities are ever creative and not driven by marketing…"
MACFARLANE: You never know what you're going to get. That Flintstones/Jetsons crossover was never as thrilling as I call back I had hoped it would be when I saw it every bit a child, merely this feels like information technology volition be very satisfying to fans of both shows.
Credit: (L-R) Matt Groening; Seth MacFarlane
EW: So what is the key to a good crossover episode?
MACFARLANE: Information technology's really about the character interaction. People want to see Peter interact with Homer. They want to run across Bart interact with Stewie. In a fashion, the story in a crossover episode, while it has to be there, is never quite as important as how the characters collaborate with each other. At that place'south that Deep Space Nine episode where they go back in time to the old Star Trek. It was an amazing piece of production where they took the characters from that series and greenscreened them flawlessly—and this was like the early on '90s—into the "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode of the original Star Expedition and it was, like, mind-blowing. And the story was kind of flimsy because at that place were and so many characters to bargain with, but it was exciting to come across the characters interact with each other.
GROENING: In this case, information technology'south two actually brilliant shows and seeing what they tin can do together. You want to see them having a practiced time and y'all desire to see Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson duke information technology out.
MACFARLANE: It does help besides that Family Guy emerged from a earth that The Simpsons created in the animation manufacture. Family unit Guy began equally a show that set out to speak the same linguistic communication, in a way that every sitcom of the '70s set out to speak the linguistic communication of All in the Family. And so, when you put them in that world, yous're not dealing with something that's all that foreign.
EW: What was information technology similar for you to come across these characters interact, especially when they starting time proverb each other'south punchlines and borrowing each other's bits?
MACFARLANE: The extreme to me of that is Stewie calling upwardly Moe, which I'yard sure the Huffington Postal service and even your magazine will assault us for. But in context, it'south pretty funny. [Afterwards watching Bart make a prank call to Moe, Stewie asks Bart if he can try information technology, calling dorsum and saying, "Howdy, Moe? Your sister's being raped!" before hanging up and asking a speechless Bart, "Is that…is that one?"]
EW: What did you think of that joke, Matt?
GROENING: Kickoff of all, we've run out of prank telephone calls, so the fact that y'all can visit that well, that'due south something we haven't done in a long time. That's pretty good.
EW: Seth, was at that place ane matter where yous said to the writers, "I want to run into this happen in the episode"?
MACFARLANE: The only thing that I remember proverb is "Y'all gotta accept Stewie go afterwards Nelson." Because Stewie idolizes Bart in the episode. It'south a way for Nelson to get his comeuppance undeniably. [There'southward] this kind of Taken scene where he's got him bound and gagged and he's going to verbal vengeance for Bart. My thing was: Go each character interacting with their counterpart.
EW: The episode pokes fun at the idea that Family Guy is derivative of The Simpsons and The Simpsons is old and not funny anymore.
GROENING: Await a 2nd, they say we're not funny anymore? I'm sorry—this crossover is canceled!
EW: Do those opinions and message-board comments from fans that both shows aren't what they used to be get under your pare at all?
GROENING: I recollect we can both say without fear of contradiction that we live by comments and our mood is completely dictated by strangers.
MACFARLANE: With an animated evidence, because nobody ages and you're not bars by sets, I think you can go longer than a live-action evidence and actually survive. I don't know whatsoever show that I've always seen that had its best years later season seven. If you lot're being honest with yourself, a evidence that is in flavour 12 or flavour 20, you start to confront that. Yous can either only kind of coast or you can go on to try to surprise your audition. Regardless of how they're perceived, I exercise experience similar both shows are continuously trying to surprise their audiences. That was why we killed Brian for iii episodes.
GROENING: And could you believe that people fell for information technology?
MACFARLANE: There was a lot of anger. A lot of anger. The comments that I read were "Y'all caved to fans—that's why you brought him back." I realized, You don't know how the shows are produced, do you? It takes a yr to do each ane.
GROENING: I like the idea that there are fans out in that location who are like, "I will never watch another episode of The Simpsons." And now they have to. [Laughs] Merely so they tin rail confronting information technology.
EW: The episode has an ballsy chicken fight betwixt Homer and Peter. Tell us honestly: Who'd win an arm wrestling match?
MACFARLANE: These are two guys who are not in shape. That's a very tough telephone call. You'd take to get them both off the couch.
GROENING: They both would cheat, right?
MACFARLANE: Probably. They'd both exist too intoxicated to go their elbows up.
EW: Matt, if you could steal i character from Family Guy and import him/her to the Simpsons universe, who would y'all take? Seth, I'll ask you the aforementioned affair.
GROENING: Well, I'one thousand really jealous of the chicken—the whole chicken-fight thing. Merely I guess Stewie. Just comedy aureate.
MACFARLANE: Oh gosh, I would probably have Mr. Burns. That's a character that but always amused me.
EW: You tin see him in Stewie.
MACFARLANE: Stewie comes from Rex Harrison start and foremost, just I would exist lying [if I said] there wasn't a shred of Mr. Burns' influence. He was only always a character that got a overnice big laugh out of me when he emerged and throughout his run. If I couldn't accept Mr. Burns, I'd take Leonard Nimoy.
EW: In that location are a lot of corking blithe shows on TV now. Which impress you most?
GROENING: I like Bob's Burgers, because it's just got a different stride to information technology and a different tone. And it does something where the characters really accept some of the rhythms of real speech communication. Family unit Guy does too. Your characters stammer sometimes. We inappreciably ever do that on The Simpsons. And on Bob'southward Burgers, information technology feels like there's more of an improvisatory feeling in the recording… My other favorite show, Adventure Time, has a very oddball look to information technology, as do Regular Bear witness and Rick and Morty.
MACFARLANE: I would give the aforementioned answer, considering [Bob's] is the first animated show to come up along in prime number-fourth dimension in ages that gets what the flavor of a prime-time blithe show is. I've seen a lot of shows come and become that just await really slick. It's a trouble. The Simpsons had this wonderful, underground look to information technology when it offset came out. That stylistic choice was and so revolutionary. Family Guy took a cue from that, and King of the Hill must have taken a cue from that. Look at Due south Park—these are all shows where their movement and the animation are very sophisticated, only the design manner has this underground kind of feel to it. That's the thing that these shows that come up and get miss every time to me. And Bob's Burgers got it.
GROENING: That's a really expert observation. My heart breaks considering doing any animated show, even if it doesn't work, is actually hard. You detest to see people get the tone wrong from the very beginning, and I think y'all're right about it being too slick.
MACFARLANE: Do yous hate information technology or is just another child that's not going to knock us off? (laughter, and then mock-serious) I detest it too.
EW: Animation is where you tin can find some of the edgiest, most inventive comedy in prime-time, and it has influenced alive-action sitcoms. Do yous feel similar animation is finally getting its due or is it has it nevertheless non gotten the credit information technology deserves?
MACFARLANE: No, I don't recall it gets the credit it deserves at all. One of the biggest tragedies is that The Simpsons never won an Emmy for best comedy. Information technology's one of the biggest things that is a black mark of shame for the University because anyone who appreciates great telly comedy puts that show up there with All in the Family as a revolutionary piece of work. Every fourth dimension I make this comparison, I become attacked, but it'southward an analogy. Sammy Davis was a smashing performer, but he wasn't allowed in the casino for obvious reasons, dorsum in the '60s. Let me say for the people who do not sympathize context—I'1000 not equating the Emmys to racism, I'm making an illustration. Garden hose is to waterfall as kitten is to tiger. So let's be clear about that, because unfortunately in this day and age that needs to be said. But information technology's this attitude of second-grade citizenry. There's no justification for it. There's no defense for information technology. Information technology's interesting, comedy writers in Hollywood revere The Simpsons, they grew up with The Simpsons, they're like, "Oh my god, that's some of the best writing on TV! I mean, I would never vote for information technology for the Emmys, merely information technology's some of the all-time writing on Idiot box!"
EW: Would winning that Emmy exist the moment that equaled out everything? You guys tried, with Family unit Guy. [In 2009, Family Guy submitted itself for consideration in the Outstanding Comedy Series category and became the starting time animated show to earn a nomination since The Flintstones in 1961, but ultimately lost to 30 Rock.]
MACFARLANE: In a dissimilar era nosotros tried. I call back if The Simpsons tried now, they would take the aforementioned luck that we did.
GROENING: Back in the solar day, when nosotros first started, they said we weren't eligible for best one-act. We fought to get it and then we didn't become nominated, so we gave up. I don't care so much about The Simpsons not winning a comedy Emmy. I experience bad for the other blithe shows in the animation category because there are so many different kinds of animation and at that place should be a category for developed animation, prime-fourth dimension blitheness, and there should be something else for cable and for kids, because they'll never win.
MACFARLANE: But single photographic camera and multi-photographic camera comedies compete against each other. Why non animated comedies? A show with an audience, a evidence without an audience, those are two very different flavors of comedy, there's a different feel to each way of evidence—same thing with blitheness. Information technology's amazing that that has non happened yet. It makes the whole thing kind of a joke to me.
GROENING: (deadpan) But y'all've never been to the Creative Arts Emmys.
MACFARLANE: Information technology's grueling. Information technology'southward about nine-and-a-half hours long—and you have to bring 8 flasks.
EW: Matt, do you concord with what he's maxim?
GROENING: Awards? Eh, I don't call up besides hard near it. The Simpsons won plenty of Emmys in its niche. And you see it on the shelf, and people tin can't tell.
MACFARLANE: That's a good point.
GROENING: Animation is not glamorous. Dorsum when The Simpsons first started on the Fox network, we sailed under the radar considering no executive wanted to come up down and expect over the shoulder of animators. They beloved to go stand on sets and critique actors and actresses.
MACFARLANE: I call back amid writers now, that has changed. If y'all said to a writer, "Hey, exercise you lot want to get piece of work on The Simpsons, do you want to go work on Family unit Guy? Or do you want to go work on this new live-action one-act that just premiered on ABC?", I think you'd accept a lot of people—
GROENING: Just I think there's also a lot of people that say "You mean I could be the side by side Conan O'Brien?" It is a springboard. (To MacFarlane) In the same style Family Guy has been kind of a good springboard for you.
MACFARLANE: (deadpan) Yep, it'southward been all right….
EW: At that place is a fun hat tip to The Flintstones in the crossover, acknowledging its identify in history. Where does The Flintstones rank for y'all in terms of animated comedy?
MACFARLANE: The Flintstones is a classic. I learned to describe by watching Fred Flintstone. There's no question, information technology's the first animated sitcom of all time. It paved the way for everybody. Only once more, the shows that I look at, when I compare The Simpsons to its predecessors, I compare it to All in the Family. This goes back to the idea of a comedy show is a comedy bear witness, regardless of the medium. When I look at Peter Griffin, I'm seeing more of Jackie Gleason than Fred Flintstone. At that place are sources of influence that touch these shows that be outside the confines of other animated shows.
GROENING: I have to admit that Homer Simpson'southward beard line was influenced by Fred Flint's beard line. Although back at the very beginning of The Simpsons, one of my friends' mother said, "I can't believe you gave that character those giant dark-brown lips!" She thought that was a lip line and that was Homer'southward lips. For me, the big influence—I watched all those Hanna-Barbera shows, I loved the voices and the music on those shows—was Rocky and Bullwinkle.
MACFARLANE: Yep.
GROENING: Rocky and Bullwinkle actually showed the way for me. My ticket into blitheness is: It wasn't the quality of the blitheness because Rocky and Bullwinkle is pretty archaic, but it had really good writing, really adept voices, really good music. I idea , "Okay, that seems like a challenge…"
EW: What practice y'all say to fans who've been waiting for this [crossover] that they thought they'd maybe never encounter?
MACFARLANE: My fearfulness is that zip we do volition exist able to live upwardly to the expectation that's in everyone'southward heads, but I hope we've at least come close. The directors, the board artists, the writers, producers—everyone has only busted their asses, so what you lot're seeing is the result of a lot of fourth dimension, a lot of sweat, and a lot of love. We hope that people volition actually enjoy it, considering it is a gift to the fans.
GROENING: It'due south a reward for paying attention if you followed both shows. If don't follow both shows, I recall it'south nevertheless very entertaining, but if yous know both shows, at that place's a lot to make you express joy.
MACFARLANE: Yous endeavour to put yourself back in the mindset yous were in when you started. If my college self knew this was happening, I would probably never stop s—ting myself.
GROENING: That'due south and then sweet.
MACFARLANE: I practice take to try and capture that emotion in my listen. Information technology's a pretty astonishing, special matter, to take characters that I created sharing our programming with The Simpsons. I tin become a meth addict now, because things won't get any better than this.
GROENING: Just make sure when you write this, y'all write, "He said humbly," not "He gloated, 'I can afford meth now!'" I always thought in Hollywood the definition of sanity is if you tin can beget to pay for your craziness. If you can't beget it, then y'all're basics. Simply if you can afford information technology, then you're someone to be envied.
MACFARLANE: That's the just thing separating usa from Gary Busey.
GROENING: He'due south washed The Simpsons. Has he washed Family Guy?
MACFARLANE: Possibly late at nighttime when no 1 was there.
EW: Seth, you're off directing movies like Ted 2. Which will come up to theaters sooner, a second Simpsons movie or a first Family unit Guy motion-picture show?
MACFARLANE: [To Groening] Are you lot guys doing a second one?
GROENING: Possibly someday. We haven't recovered from the kickoff one yet.
MACFARLANE: You haven't recovered from being injured past the piles of money that hit yous in the head?
GROENING: The problem was there's no bench team waiting to run in and do the work. It was the same people doing the show every bit doing the film.
MACFARLANE: That is the biggest trouble. I don't know how y'all guys did that.
GROENING: Nosotros thought it was going to be two years and like virtually every other animated film, it took 4 years and it killed us…. Are y'all doing a Family unit Guy motion-picture show?
MACFARLANE: Somewhen I gotta figure we will. I have an idea of what it would be, only I simply never had the time. I spent then many years working on the evidence vii days a week that the urge to try other things was so strong. It's not on my immediate list of things to practise, just I would be shocked if information technology never happened.
EW: How fleshed out is your idea?
MACFARLANE: Adequately fleshed out.
EW: Can you give united states 1 cryptic clue?
MACFARLANE: Something you couldn't do on Idiot box.
GROENING: That's what you gotta do. Otherwise, why should they go? That's why we showed Bart's penis in The Simpsons Motion-picture show.
EW: Seth, will movies be taking more than of your focus abroad from blitheness? Or practice you see yourself always being tethered to animation?
MACFARLANE: Professionally I find that I'grand oftentimes broken-hearted to practise any it is I'm non doing. I still have an involvement in animation. Recently I've had an interest in going back to goggle box considering you just practice different muscles. I was watching an episode of Television receiver Funhouse this morning, that Robert Smigel show, which just always f—ing killed me, and I was laughing my donkey off. I was like, "God, I forgot how funny this is." Information technology'southward the kind of matter that reminds me what I was doing while I was on Family unit Guy, and I do miss that. Both media are a lot of fun in different ways, so I always desire to keep a hand in each, if I tin can.
EW: Matt, what do you retrieve about live-activity? Is that something you lot're interested in exploring?
GROENING: Yeah. I was really excited past Louie. The final couple seasons in particular were fantastic. Also, there's a Canadian testify that keeps coming back, Trailer Park Boys. It'south a very loose show but really, really funny. (To MacFarlane] There's a Danish bear witness called Klown—information technology ran from 2005 to 2009, it's sort of a Danish Curb Your Enthusiasm-way show—that I think you'd like. They actually made a characteristic called Klown. Y'all would like that motion picture. And I think about getting into movies, because the problem with a TV show is in theory, if it's successful, information technology doesn't end. The Simpsons hasn't ended. I've been working on The Simpsons since 1987. Futurama lasted over a decade. Who knows, that may come dorsum some day. But a movie is finite. In that location's a beginning and there's an finish, and so y'all do the next one. And I've got this idea near a stuffed deport….
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Source: https://ew.com/article/2014/09/27/matt-groening-seth-macfarlane-simpsons-family-guy-crossover/
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