Fox to dominate animation with Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers crossover

We smell another cheap cartoon crossover.

Following the crossovers between The Simpsons and Family Guy, The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers, The Simpsons and The Simpsons, and Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers, Fox will premiere a crossover for all three. That’s right. Peter Griffin is avoiding his annoying wife Lois all the way to their lead-in show, finding Homer waiting for him, and completing Fox’s near-20-year attempt at Animation Domination.

In a new clip promoting the March 12 episode of Family Guy, Fox teases the animated breaking of buns among the network’s three most beloved animated family guys. However, it doesn’t sound like this will be an entire episode, like when The Flintstones met The Jetsons (or The Simpsons met The Critic). Instead, the clip more or less offers a meta Family Guy gag that will have no bearing on the show’s already disorienting universe.

Speaking to EW, Family Guy co-showrunner Rich Appel hyped the latest meeting of the animated minds. “Even folks as jaded as Hollywood sitcom writers get a thrill seeing them together in the same scene,” he said. “It’s the same sort of excitement you feel when a Chicago policeman and a Chicago fireman are in the same scene on a Chicago-themed program.”

Fox has long relied on the crossover to juice their Animation Domination line-up. The Simpsons has hosted crossovers since the 90s, inviting The Critic’s Jay Sherman to Springfield in the classic “A Star Is Burns” episode, ultimately leading to a falling out between Matt Groening and James L. Brooks. Not to mention, The Simpsons episodes featuring American Idol, The X-Files, and fellow Matt Groening-created animated comedy Futurama. Eventually, Family Guy got in the act with the 2014 Simpsons episode “The Simpsons Guy,” which The A.V. Club called the “worst crossover of 2014.” More recently, the Belchers popped up in Quahog for a 2019 Family Guy episode and Springfield for “Treehouse Of Horror XXXIII.”

With this much success crossing over, it seems likely that there will be more of this in the future—though none are in the works. “We don’t have any more crossover appearances planned,” said Appel, “but we reserve the right to change our minds if a new Fox animated show premieres and is a huge hit, and we feel that shoehorning one of its characters into our show could bring us even the slightest bit of reflected glory.” We presume this means we’re still three years from a crossover that includes The Great North. A dominator’s work is never done.