‘The Simpsons’ Stopped Doing Cutaway Gags Because of ‘Family Guy’
The Simpsons has obviously changed in a number of ways over the past 35 years, from the evolving animation style, to the shifting voice cast, to the fact that they’re probably not going to be making any more jokes about the controversial racial politics of cartoon magnate and theme park founder Roger Meyers Sr.
The show also used to regularly feature cutaway gags, in which the primary narrative is interrupted with flashbacks, daydreams or scenes in alternate locations that serve as punchlines to something the characters have been discussing — such as Homer’s vision of attending Maggie’s wedding with two vending machines on each arm, or the brief shot of Springfield Elementary’s Lunchlady Doris feeding old gym mats into a meat grinder.
But while this was once a staple of the show’s storytelling technique, that’s no longer the case, mostly thanks to Family Guy.
The topic came up during the DVD commentary for the Season Three episode “Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?” during the moment when Marge suggests replacing the family’s washer and dryer, and the scene cuts to a brief glimpse of the two appliances nearly killing Snowball II. In the end, the janky machines are sold off to Moe for use in illicit bar races. At least it temporarily kept him away from the panda bear trafficking game.
In response to the cutaway, producer Al Jean noted that “we had started doing these jokes a lot more at this point, where we could cut away to some unrelated visual. Then Family Guy started doing it, and then we really didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“And then we knew it was dead,” creator Matt Groening chimed in.
“Once they were copying us,” Jean cheekily added.
Family Guy’s non-sequitur cutaways were obviously a defining characteristic of the show. South Park famously roasted the Seth MacFarlane series for its predictable formula, suggesting that the conspicuously random cutaways were the result of manatees selecting “idea balls” inside of a giant tank.
MacFarlane, has admitted that the show’s penchant for cutaways was inspired by The Simpsons, specifically the episode in which Homer fantasizes about the “land of chocolate.”
“There were things like that they used sporadically,” MacFarlane stated in 2012. “You recall each one of those so well that it seemed like it was a stylistic thing because they were so memorable,” suggesting that The Simpsons only used this storytelling approach “in limited form.”
According to MacFarlane, he endeavored to find a “way to do this structurally,” hence why the cutaways became a focal point of Family Guy.
It’s like Pablo Picasso said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal jokes and then run them into the ground for 20 years.”
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