Okay, maybe this needed its own posting and maybe it didn’t, but to my way of thinking, any panel that includes Matt Groening and Al Jean (producers of “The Simpsons”), Mike Judge and John Altschuler (producers of “King of the Hill”), Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman (producers of “American Dad”), Mike Henry and Richard Appel (producers of “The Cleveland Show”), and Seth MacFarlane (producer of “Family Guy,” “American Dad,” and “The Cleveland Show”) is automatically gonna be funny enough to get it’s own posting.
I was proven right when MacFarlane came onto the stage and, knowing that the previous panel had been for Fox News, asked, “Is this where Karl Rove sat? ‘Cause I don’t want to get AIDS…”
(When the room erupted in boos, MacFarlane grinned and replied, “Use that as the bar.”
Here are some of the panel highlights:
* The “Empire Strikes Back” episode of “Family Guy” just had its animatic screening, according to MacFarlane, and will be shipped off to be animated in a few weeks or so. No air date has been set yet, however, and there’s apparently some question about whether it might be released on DVD prior to being aired on Fox. (MacFarlane would also like to do a “Family Guy” version of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” but he’s pretty sure Paramount won’t let them do it.)
* Don’t look for any crossovers between “The Cleveland Show” and “Family Guy” anytime soon. “Cleveland’s moving out of town, and there’s a whole new fresh crop of characters,” said Henry, “and we’re not going to have Peter come visit anytime soon. Cleveland’s not going to go back anytime soon. We’re really looking to establish ourselves.”
* This year’s “Treehouse of Horror” will include a “Peanuts” parody called “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Millhouse,” where a pumpkin comes to life and is so upset at what humans do to pumpkins that he tries to kill and eat everybody.
* Seth Rogen is writing an episode of “The Simpsons,” where Comic Book Guy creates a superhero that gets turned into a feature film, with Homer playing the lead. Seth Rogen plays a personal trainer who helps slim Homer down and get him into great shape, but when the movie ends, he can’t afford this trainer, so his life goes back to hell.
* There was silence when I first asked the panel if they had any guest stars in the upcoming season they could discuss, but Jean finally responded, “We had Mark Cuban and Jeff Bezos playing themselves with what’s probably the richest supporting cast in the history of animation.” (“Other than the ‘Simpsons’ cast,” quipped Groening.) Inspired by Jean’s forthrightness, MacFarlane then admitted that we could expect a “Family Guy” episode where Stewie and Brian go to Russia with Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd.
* Despite years of gossip to the contrary, Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane do not dislike each other. “Matt and I get along very well,” MacFarlane assured us. “People want us to hate each other. We get along extremely well. He’s a wonderful guy.”
* When one writer mentioned that “Family Guy” was on the list of the Emmy Awards’ 10 finalists for Best Comedy and asked what Stewie would wear to the Emmys, Seth MacFarlane turned to the crowd and laughed, “Jack McGee over there, with his hard-hitting questions!” (After the laughter died down, he thanked us for getting the reference.)
* Matt Groening has an issue with 3-D eyeballs. “Know what really bothers me about animation?” he asked us. “This shows that I’m from the wrong generation. Every one of those CGI animated movies that has a cute animal in it, for me they look like toys. They look like figurines that you would see in the toy store. But that’s okay, I can get by that. It’s that they have human eyeballs with little human irises, and so whenever I’m watching any of those movies, I get freaked out because I go, ‘They put human eyeballs in those characters,’ and that really bugs me. So I like the fact that I get to work with animators who is are able to draw almost perfect circles, little ovals with dots. That’s an eyeball.”
* Although a George Bush presidency has been great for “American Dad,” Mike Barker is willing to put the country ahead of the show and root for the Democrats. “It’s going to be really interesting,” he admitted. “Stan has been on the winning side for so long. To see him deal with what is hopefully going to be the other side, it’s going to be an opportunity. It’s actually really cool for the show because it gives us a chance to see him kind of vulnerable and kind of more frustrated. So we’re looking forward to it for more reasons than one.”
* When someone asked the panel what they might say to the person who might say, “I can’t watch this, it’s just a cartoon,” MacFarlane suggested, “Give ‘Scrubs’ a chance?” (After the “Scrubs” panel, Lawrence was informed of this jab and replied with a smirk, “Wow, MacFarlane’s doing another cartoon, huh? Gosh, but he does so much other stuff!” He then clarified that he and MacFarlane have a relationship, and that “it’s okay to fuck with each other.”)
* When the panel was asked if they were concerned that they might accidentally steal stuff from each other, Appel assured them that he consciously steals stuff from them, while Mike Henry said, “I don’t know if people know, but the scripts for ‘The Cleveland Show’ are just going to be ‘Good Times’ episodes.”
* As long as Fox wants “The Simpsons,” Groening and Jean are ready to keep doing the show. “We’re having a really good time,”confirmed Groening. “The task that we face at ‘The Simpsons’ is trying not to repeat ourselves, trying to come up with new ideas that we haven’t done ourselves already. And under the guidance of Al, the animators and writers are coming up with ideas that I don’t think we’ve done before.” “And that we’re really excited about,” added Jean, who also acknowledged that “since we’re not now doing a movie and a ride at the same time as the show, it’s kind of easy.”
* Mike Judge has no definite idea when “King of the Hill” will end, but it sounds like he wouldn’t be surprised if it ended tomorrow. “I keep thinking I’ve got one bad season in me, and then we end up having some really good episodes,” he said. “Then I think the next one will be the bad last one. I don’t know. It seems like as long as the episodes are still good, I’ll keep doing it as long as FOX renews it and, you know, it’s still fun.”
