TV: Family Guy

I've always liked Family Guy, and have tended to defend it from those who claim it's just a ripoff of The Simpsons.

But last night on the Cartoon Network, I watched an episode of Family Guy that ripped off the following Simpsons episodes:

--the soap box derby episode

--the Bart is a Boy Scout episode

--the Homer thinks Bart is gay episode

--the Marge has a gambling problem episode

--the Indian casino episode

--the Bart and Homer get lost in the woods episode

--the Homer has a vision episode

...and probably a few others I didn't catch. In one show!

Some of them are blatant (the soap box race, the gambling), some are maybe stretching the comparison (Homer thinks Bart is gay), but still. It's like they decided to steal every single episode of The Simpsons at once. I'm amazed there wasn't a monorail. Or a Planet of the Apes musical.

It would be funny to think they intentionally stole from as many Simpsons episodes as possible just as a jab at the people who had always accused them of doing so, but that's probably giving them too much credit.