While The Simpsons has taken a few potshots at its competitors before, season 34’s Treehouse of Horror Halloween special was the first episode to explicitly make fun of South Park, Rick and Morty, and Family Guy in the same gag – and even made room to mock some other comedy series at the same time. So far, The Simpsons season 34 has seen the series mock itself more than ever before. This would be an impressive feat for any show, but for a series as famously self-aware as the anarchic animated comedy, season 34’s commitment to mocking the many plot holes of The Simpsons, the show’s storytelling shortcuts, and even its competitors has been impressive.
In The Simpsons season 34, episode 6, “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII,” the series parodied Westworld with a segment set in a theme park that allowed patrons to re-enact their favorite scenes from Golden Age episodes of The Simpsons. The ending of the parody revealed that the Simpson family had escaped their theme park prison, but they were now in a similar nearby theme park based on Bob’s Burgers while, on the horizon, South Park Park, Family Guy Town, and Rick and Morty Universe were also visible. Rather than merely name-checking its biggest competitors, this gag saw The Simpsons warn those newer shows that they, too, would one day be seen as past their prime.
How The Simpsons Season 34 Spoofed Other Adult Animated Comedies
Since season 34 has broken The Simpsons rules to tell weirder, more experimental stories, it makes sense that the Westworld spoof saw the show make fun of viewers who wanted to endlessly relive its 90s glory days. “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII” mocked the idea of The Simpsons simply recreating old episodes and scenes ad nauseam. Thus, the inclusion of all of these other theme parks implied that Rick and Morty, Bob’s Burgers, and Family Guy would all someday suffer the same fate as The Simpsons, being loved for the classic outings but less relevant in their current incarnation.
While The Simpsons still has a large viewership, the show also has a sense of humor about its waning relevance in the pop culture landscape. Once an era-defining cultural touchstone, nowadays, The Simpsons is often viewed as an influential, but outdated, series. The Simpsons season 34 attracts big celebrity cameos because of the show’s cultural acumen, but it is not the critically-acclaimed, hot new phenomenon that it was at its peak. However, with 20 seasons under its belt, Family Guy is now also a television institution and, at 25 years old, the once-edgy South Park is also showing its age. Thus, The Simpsons gag let the series warn these shows that aging into irrelevance will happen to all of them, too.
The Simpsons Featured Rick and Morty Before
This is not the first time that Rick and Morty was mentioned on The Simpsons, although the pair’s last appearance wasn’t a playful jab at the series and its creative debt to the earlier hit. Instead, it was a classic couch gag collaboration from The Simpsons season 26, episode 22, “Mathlete’s Feat.” Like Bill Plympton’s trippy Simpsons couch gags, that brief sequence saw The Simpsons abandon the show’s reality for a while when Rick and Morty accidentally killed the eponymous heroes. However, that cameo did not mock Rick and Morty the way that their later appearance in “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII,” did.
Why The Simpsons Mocks Family Guy, South Park, and Bob’s Burgers
This isn’t the first time The Simpsons made fun of South Park, Family Guy, or even Bob’s Burgers. The reason for this is that all of these shows borrowed from The Simpsons to an extent so, while they each enjoyed popularity after the peak of The Simpsons, the show has good reason to jokingly imply that they, too, will soon be artifacts. Already, South Park season 26 is changing the show’s formula to avoid staleness and repetition, and the success of The Bob’s Burgers Movie earlier this year prompted a string of think pieces about whether it was time for the show to wrap up lest it ends up like The Simpsons.
It is strange for The Simpsons to be both an iconic piece of pop culture and a punchline at the same time, with the show simultaneously acting as a byword for a series that has outstayed its welcome and as one of the medium’s most respected and impressive achievements thanks to its early-season success. The Simpsons season 34 has attempted to work around this by toying with the show’s formula, breaking its rules, and re-negotiating what an episode of the show can be with experiments like The Simpsons‘ brilliant parody of Stephen King’s IT. Now, however, “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII,” has allowed The Simpsons to also warn the likes of Rick and Morty, South Park, and Family Guy that the same fate could well await them.
