How The Simpsons Influenced Every Major Animated Adult Comedy

How The Simpsons Influenced Every Major Animated Adult Comedy

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The Simpsons reshaped television comedy, but how did the show influence Bob’s Burgers specifically? And American Dad? And South Park? And Family Guy?

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How The Simpsons Influenced Every Major Animated Adult Comedy

Every major animated adult comedy owes a debt to The Simpsons, but what specific elements did the likes of South Park, King of the Hill, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers borrow from the show? When The Simpsons debuted in 1989 with the Christmas special “Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire”, the series was like nothing else on television. Crude, cynical, and subversive, The Simpsons shattered the cozy cliches of sitcom writing to offer a more satirically sharp take on modern family life in America.

In the decades since the series premiered, The Simpsons has been through both massive critical acclaim and gradual, ongoing critical decline. During its so-called Golden Age, the series was lauded as one of the best in television’s history, and its style of humor had a huge impact on the landscape of television comedy that has lasted through to 2021. However, as imitators like Family Guy and South Park moved into darker, edgier territory, the fan love for early seasons of The Simpsons gave way to a more ambivalent view that many critics and viewers alike share toward its most recent seasons.

Since season twelve or so, The Simpsons has no longer been regarded as must-watch television, and many of the show’s imitators have enjoyed better reviews than the series that inspired their existence in recent years. Bob’s Burgers, for example, owes a clear creative debt to the earlier sitcom and is currently outperforming The Simpsons among critics as well as often matching the show’s ratings. However, it would be unfair to single out that critically acclaimed show when everything from South Park to King of the Hill, to Family Guy, to American Dad all owe a debt to The Simpsons. However, it is worth noting that none of the series directly copied the approach of Springfield’s favorite family, and each major adult animated comedy hit released in the wake of The Simpsons takes a different type of influence from the show.

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South Park—Pushing Boundaries

How The Simpsons Influenced Every Major Animated Adult Comedy

It’s hard to remember – after how far Archer, Rick & Morty, Seth MacFarlane’s work, and South Park itself have pushed the medium – that animated television comedy was ever a family-friendly affair. But before The Simpsons, attempts to legitimize animated comedy aimed at adults were few and far between, and mostly consisted of cult curios like Ralph Bakshi’s work or sanitized, kid-friendly sitcoms like The Flintstones. The fact that The Simpsons was unapologetically aimed at adult audiences (and not always entirely suitable for kids) gave rise to the more outré likes of South Park.

South Park’s humor is not only crasser and more outwardly offensive but also darker and more violent than that of The Simpsons. However, The Simpsons did often push the envelope in terms of what mainstream prime time television would allow an animated series to depict, with the gory antics of Itchy and Scratchy being an obvious example. Series writer John Swartzwelder himself was shocked by how permissive the network was in this regard, saying he couldn’t believe what the series got away with by adding the distinction that Itchy and Scratchy was a cartoon in-universe. Meanwhile, controversial insults toward Australia, Brazil, and New Orleans all prompted protests of The Simpsons, while the show’s annual “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween specials further contributed to upping the ante of gory comedic violence that South Park soon benefited from.

King of the Hill—Small-town Satire

How The Simpsons Influenced Every Major Animated Adult Comedy

There’s no denying that The Simpsons spoofs the denizens of Springfield. However, unlike the show’s pitiless potshots at politicians and public figures, there’s an unmissable warmth in its satire of small-town peccadilloes. Springfield is ultimately viewed affectionately by the series, something the milder and more deadpan King of the Hill took and ran with. King of the Hill is centered around parodying small-town characters and their worldview but doesn’t see them as villainous or deserving of hate despite the show’s gentle mockery. It may be a coincidence that King of the Hill began airing around the same time that The Simpsons’ proposed spinoff looking into the lives of individual Springfield citizens was vetoed, but Mike Judge’s sitcom nonetheless keeps the earlier show’s attitude toward small-town America alive throughout its 13 seasons.

Family Guy and Rick & Morty—Subverting Family Sitcoms

How The Simpsons Influenced Every Major Animated Adult Comedy

The mega-hit Family Guy, with its theme song decrying the amount of sex and violence on TV, was a bit more blatant about its satire of family sitcom conventions than its predecessor The Simpsons. But both series spoof the conventions of family sitcoms and refuse to give their characters schmaltzy hugging and learning moments, an approach that The Simpsons took even before Seinfeld made it famous. Rick & Morty later took this even further, flipping the sitcom family structure on its head with screwed-up heroes and a realistically unhappy marriage. The Simpsons leaned away from relying on the sentimentality of earlier family shows like The Cosby Show in favor of darker humor, and this satire of traditional family sitcom dynamics is something both Rick & Morty and Family Guy relied on in the years to come.

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Bob’s Burgers—A Focus On Heart

How The Simpsons Influenced Every Major Animated Adult Comedy

For all of its smart satire and clever writing, The Simpsons would be nothing without the show’s big heart. Bob’s Burgers took this element of the series to heart, centering the “sweet” part of The Simpsons’ “dysfunctional but sweet” ethos to counterbalance darker animated comedies like American Dad and Family Guy’s focus on the “dysfunctional” element. Where the characters of Family Guy treat one another abysmally for comedic effect, the clan central to Bob’s Burgers struggle comically through everyday life as a family unit, much like The Simpsons did before them.

American Dad—Pointed Political Satire

While Seth MacFarlane’s second sitcom American Dad may be far darker and edgier than The Simpsons, episodes like George W Bush arriving for dinner with the Smiths (and promptly falling off the wagon) wouldn’t have been possible without The Simpsons bringing George HW Bush to Springfield for a prank war with Homer. The Simpsons famously attempted to avoid aligning itself with a specific political viewpoint throughout its run and took unsparing shots across the political divide as a result. The twin slogans of the Democrat and Republican parties on the show – “We hate life and ourselves” and “We want what’s worst for everyone,” – are the sort of razor-sharp jabs that American Dad was originally intended to take at the political elites and self-proclaimed patriots of the eponymous superpower. While the show has grown more surreal and less pointedly satirical in recent seasons, American Dad nonetheless owes the satirical approach of its early outings to The Simpsons.

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