‘Family Guy’ Beats ‘The Simpsons’ in the War of the Wildfire Posts
The decades-long cold war between Family Guy and The Simpsons is heating up again, but, this time, Seth MacFarlane didn’t start the fire.
Right now, the entertainment world is still trying to find the right way to address the ongoing wildfires in Southern California that have destroyed over 10,000 homes and taken 24 lives. As some celebrities run fundraising campaigns to support the firefighters at the front lines of the disaster, others take a more indirect approach toward helping Angelenos during this crisis. For instance, instead of donating to the American Red Cross and urging their followers to do the same, some comedians are spreading conspiracy theories about roving bands of homeless arsonists hang gliding back and forth between Altadena and the Pacific Palisades pouring gasoline into the sewers.
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Then, there’s the adult animation community, which has handled the emergency by turning to their greatest talent: adult animation. Family Guy star and creator MacFarlane went viral last week for posting a simple, hand-drawn picture of Brian Griffin in a firefighter’s uniform giving a thumbs up to first responders, but, when The Simpsons tried to offer their own heart-felt cartoon message, Twitter started taking sides in the cartoon war like it's 2007 and Quagmire just murdered Marge's family:
Curiously, the tide seems to have turned on MacFarlane’s post since his almost embarrassingly earnest message went viral. While Twitter users initially mocked MacFarlane’s doodle as a millionaire’s tone-deaf and performative bid for attention during a difficult time, the Simpsons social media team’s much more professional and air-brushed presentation show of support has somehow turned Brian and his fireman hat into a folk hero who might as well be on the front lines of the fires himself.
Ultimately, of course, neither Fireman Brian nor Eeyore Lisa are actually going to end the wildfire crisis and rebuild the thousands of homes lost to the blaze, and arguing back and forth on social media about a couple of doodles while homes and businesses burn to the ground is an equally useless endeavor. But as long as we keep arguing about bullshit on Twitter, the fire can’t win.
If there’s one point on which MacFarlane and Matt Groening can agree, it’s that natural disasters are no match for the fire and fury of a pissed-off cartoon fan with an internet connection.
