‘The Simpsons’ Staff Sent Flowers To the ‘South Park’ Writers for Making Fun of ‘Family Guy’
In 2006, Matt Stone and Trey Parker made a two-parter South Park episode where they ripped on Family Guy. Fans of Parker and Stone know how much they dislike Seth MacFarlane’s animated series, yet it turns out there’s one show who detests Family Guy even more than they do.
According to Parker, the writing staff at The Simpsons “hate” Family Guy so much that they sent the South Park crew flowers after they ripped on MacFarlane’s show.
What is the ‘South Park’ episode ‘Cartoon Wars’ about?
The two-parter South Park special titled “Cartoon Wars” is remembered for its strong opinion on Family Guy.
In the episode, Cartman tries to cancel Family Guy by getting it off the air. As we learn, Cartman hates Family Guy because his sense of humor is constantly being compared to the adult cartoon. His feelings about MacFarlane’s show are a manifestation of Parker and Stone’s opinion on the series. According to the South Park creators, they can’t stand being compared to the Fox series because they think their humor is nothing like MacFarlane’s.
“We kept running into people that are just like, ‘Oh, you guys do South Park – I love that show, and Family Guy. That’s the best. You must love Family Guy,” Parker tells The New York Times. “And we were like, ‘No, we [really] hate Family Guy.”
“It’s a frustration I’m sure they probably have, too,” Stone says of the Family Guy staff. “You get lumped together with shows because you’re animated. There’s just not a lot of similarities, we don’t think, between the two shows.”
And apparently, The Simpsons staff couldn’t be happier with “Cartoon Wars.” They even sent Stone and Parker a gift for making fun of MacFarlane’s series.
‘The Simpsons’ writers sent Matt Stone and Trey Parker flowers for ripping on ‘Family Guy’
“After ‘Cartoon Wars’ aired, we got calls from people at The Simpsons, of people saying ‘Thank you.’ Because they actually hate Family Guy more than we do, even though they won’t say it,” Parker says during a South Park commentary video. And then we got calls from people that work on King of The Hill– They said, quote, ‘You’re doing God’s work by ripping on Family Guy… That’s sort of how everyone in this town feels about Family Guy,” says Parker. “And it’s sort of a childish jealousy thing too because it’s like ‘come on, our stuff is cooler.’”
In a separate interview with Reason.com, Parker said, “We got flowers from The Simpsons people because we ripped on Family Guy.”
Seth MacFarlane talks about his relationship with ‘The Simspons’ writers and ‘South Park’ writers
While speaking to Howard Stern, MacFarlane weighed in on his relationship with The Simpsons writers and South Park writers.
Of his relationships with The Simpsons writers, he claims, “That’s more of a friendly rivalry. They take shots of us, we take shots at them… Matt Groening is a friend of mine. He’s a great guy. That’s more of an ‘all in good fun’ type of thing.”
And when talking about Parker and Stone, MacFarlane said, “They seem to have some… I don’t know. They can say whatever they want about the show, you know, just go nuts… But what sort of crossed the line for me was, you know, don’t go harping on staff writers.”
