How to Do Reference Comedy: The Simpsons vs Family Guy

After my recent video on the Worst Simpsons Episode, I thought it would be nice to look at something the Simpsons does well! So, the question for this video is how does the Simpsons incorporated pop culture references into their comedy, and how does this compare to what we see in the typical comedy of Family Guy? Hope you all enjoy!

Credit to the YouTube channel School of Wok, from whom I got the clips of Chinese food being cooked

00:00 Exhibit A
09:57 Making References Work
20:40 Bonus Point

[ZarkWiffle]

Growing up with The Simpsons I've lost count of how many times I've watched an old movie and realized that a memorable gag was actually a reference.

[emperormegaman]

"Also, you know what they call cheese in Paris?"
"what do they call it?"
"Le fromage"
"Le fromage. Maaan, it's like those french guys got a whole n'other language!"

[CrizzyEyes]

There's another layer to the Simpsons rendition of the joke, which is the relatable childhood experience for most Americans in which your school admin faculty tries to be funny, and it falls completely awkward and flat.

[glitchedoom]

Skinner unhumorously explaining a joke as the punchline is so in character for him that you don't need to know the reference to find it funny. There's intent and reason in choosing those two characters to deliver that joke. That's what makes the Simpsons so much funnier.

[dogberry]

The fact that Family Guy made a referential joke to Kevin Spacey's misconduct and crimes years before anyone outside of Hollywood insiders would recognize it as a reference is just... I don't know what to make of it.

[wondershroom]

13:30 to be fair I do genuinely think that the Godfather joke actually is one of the best jokes in the series, because even if you know nothing about The Godfather or have just never seen it(like me when I first saw the clip), there's something so funny about a family who are about to drown to death with their last words being an argument on whether a movie is good or not

[CatSculptor]

When you don't understand a reference in the Simpsons you think, "That was funny, feels like it was referencing something"
When you don't understand a Family Guy reference, it's just, "I don't get that reference"

[Rurike]

Well here i am as a perfect example of his point as someone who didnt know shapoopi was just a whole song that already existed and now think way less of that whole scene

[prageruwu]

my favourite part of the joke is chalmers calling skinner a sexless freak, it's so out of pocket

[ARCtheCartoonMaster]

Not gonna lie, getting an ad mid-“HA-HA!” made the joke infinitely funnier.

[DenderFriend]

Early Family Guy cutaways were a lot funnier because they usually tied more into the characters. "This is like the time I..." or "This is worse than the time I..." now they don't even bother having the characters involved.

[GlitchyTSP]

I can confirm the planet of the apes musical joke works because all I know about that movie is the liberty scene, and yet it is still one of my favorite jokes, ever.
The Rhyming, the costumes, the dancing as they sing 'Doctor Zeus'

I've never seen the movie yet it still greatly entertains me.

[HOTD_]

"Imagine if you'd never heard of CinemaSins" Oh I wish!

[LucasBuilds]

I feel like the really disappointing thing about Family Guy's style of humour is that the writers are capable of being genuinely pretty funny. I feel like the first couple Star Wars parodies hold up decently and are at their best when they're riffing directly on the movies-- stuff like the star destroyer crew being bewildered by the order not to fire on the escape pod ('What, are they paying us by the lazer now?') and Brian telling the audience to go watch the actual Empire Strikes Back because Lando really IS wearing han's clothes in that one scene land pretty well and don't detract from the actual story.

A lot of the time Family Guy's cutaway jokes feel like they're just... there to fill runtime, because they didn't have enough episode for the episode. If anything they work better viewed out of their original context.

[ScottDerkez]

A great example of a reference done perfectly in the Simpsons is the episode “Barthood, ” an entire episode thats a reference to a film, but as someone who knows absolutely nothing about that film, the episode is just a great episode and I don’t feel the need to know the references to get the context; it uses the Simpsons characters to create a reason for the story to take place.

[AndyLundell]

One piece of media that I've always thought does reference comedy well : Sesame Street. Especially the early stuff.
There are TWO separate classic Sesame Street sketches that parody "The Seventh Seal". They knew that the kids would not get the reference but the parents might. So they had to make jokes that worked on both levels.
If they had just depended on their audience of toddlers being familiar with Scandinavian art-house films about the Black Death, ... they probably would not have lasted 54 seasons.

[Iotuseater]

It always kind of feels like family guy has this weird distaste for whatever it’s referencing if that makes sense.

[MelodyYoung]

There was a really good Animaniacs Abbot and Costello joke where Slappy and her nephew were talking about "The Who" like the band and honestly it was so faithful to the original bit and was one of my favorite jokes in the series.

Family guy trying to be like "Check out how much funnier we are than these old comedians!" as like a bit doesn't even hold a candle.

[Red-jlqr]

I'm just realizing how often i was just staring at the screen waiting for the cutaway to end when i was a kid watching family guy

[Natalie_Toshino]

Spending a whole 23-minutes explaining a joke, relevantly, starting with a joke of a joke being explained, relevantly, is so amazingly meta, I would love to know that you did that, on purpose.:)