The Simpsons' 10 Most Desperate Attempts To Boost Ratings

Airing the same night as ‘Clown in the Dumps,’ the Season 13 premiere of Family Guy shows the Griffins taking a trip to avoid some negative publicity due to a sexist cartoon made by Peter for the local newspaper.

At the beginning of the episode, The Griffins are watching a crossover show. Chris yells, ‘yay, a crossover always brings out the best things in each show. It certainly doesn’t smack of desperation. The priorities are always creative, and not driven by marketing…’ At least they’re self-aware…

Initially, once The Griffins make it to Springfield, the two families become good friends. Stewy hangs out with Bart, Meg is paired with Lisa, Peter with Homer, Chris and Brian are tasked with walking (and losing) Santa’s Little Helper.

The main plot revolves around Homer helping Peter find his car - and even leads to a bizarre (yet hard to look away) scene where both men erotically wash cars.

Eventually, The Griffin’s find their car (Moleman was using it, thinking it was his pants. Right…), then Peter criticises Duff beer, ‘I used to like it, but I haven’t had it in thirteen years’ in a quip talking about the original inspiration and eventual divergence of both The Simpsons and Family Guy.

The Griffins are then taken to court for copying The Simpsons IP and lose. A final, so-long-it’s-funny fight scene breaks out after Peter says ’on behalf of everyone… The Simpsons suck.’ Peter gets the upper hand when a UFO crushes Homer, but he survives (maybe Bart’s couch gag on the episode earlier on in the night was referring to this…) and both confess their mutual respect.

While a crossover is pure fan service, the fact that it is The Simpsons appearing on Family Guy, and not the other way around, shows just how much Family Guy had surpassed The Simpsons in popularity during this time.