I am – Hercules!!
Much controversy was precipitated in April 2006, when “South Park’s” “Cartoon Wars” episodes posited that the Fox sitcom “Family Guy” was written by mindless sea mammals. In this column’s talkbacks, some “Family Guy” proponents even went so far as to insist that Trey Parker and Matt Stone actually loved “Family Guy” and the episodes portraying the “Guy” writers as manatees represented only good-natured ribbing. Those talkbackers may have missed Exclaim!’s June 2005 exchange with “South Park” masterminds Trey Parker and Matt Stone:

EXCLAIM!: What's the meanest thing ever said to you before, during or after a gig? MATT STONE: When people say to me, “God, you guys have one of the best shows on television. You and Family Guy.” That fucking hurts so bad. TREY PARKER: Very well said. It's such a kick in the balls.

Adding to the confusion was the fact that good-hearted 8-year old Kyle Broflovski claimed he found “Family Guy” entertaining while the evil Eric Cartman was the character who issued this screed:

ERIC CARTMAN: Don't you ever, EVER compare me to Family Guy, you hear me Kyle? Compare me to Family Guy again and so help me, I will kill you where you stand! Do you have any idea what it's like? Everywhere I go: "Hey Cartman you must like Family Guy, right?" "Hey, your sense of humor reminds me of Family Guy, Cartman!" I am nothing like Family Guy! When I make jokes they are inherent to a story! Deep situational and emotional jokes based on what is relevant and has a point, not just one random interchangeable joke after another!

The audio commentary on the recently released “South Park” 10th season DVD set has since made plain that Parker and Stone truly hate “Family Guy.” Apparently they’re not the only ones, as revealed to IGN last March:

TREY PARKER: The day after that episode aired, we got flowers from The Simpsons. We got calls from King of the Hill, saying we were doing God's work. It's not just our opinion.

There’s also this exchange from that March 2007 interview:

IGN: Have you heard any reaction back from Seth McFarlane [sic] or anyone from Family Guy over the jokes you made about them on "Cartoon Wars"? MATT STONE: We haven't heard anything. I think they're just swimming around in their [tank].

Eighteen months later, has MacFarlane finally prepared a response? AICN spy “Nick” attended a live “Family Guy” event in Chicago and asked MacFarlane about the manatees. His report follows. Beware spoilers for upcoming “Guy” episodes:

Hey Herc: Quick Report from Chicago- I just attended "Family Guy Live" here in Chicago where the very inebriated cast went through a reading of one of the earlier episodes and intertwined a plot line from an upcoming episode. In the upcoming episode (which I do not remember the title to) Meg gets a job at a convenience store after Stewie knocks down a row of magazines and the manager is impressed with her sorting skills while putting it back up... When Chris comes in he hits it off with the manager who only wants to talk about movies with Chris while Meg is forced to do all the work. When Meg finally complains she is fired while Chris continues to talk about movies and entertainment with the manager. Finally, when Chris feels down about his sister not having a job he refuses to talk to the manager about a specific movie unless he hires Meg back, which he does. There was then a preview of the Star Wars episode of Family Guy that is upcoming this fall. Quagmire is C3PO, Cleveland is R2D2 (who is holding a bag of pot with him throughout the entire bit,) Stewie is Darth Vader, Chris is Han Solo, Peter is Luke Skywalker, Brain is Chewbacca, and Lois is Leah. Meg makes an appearance as the snake monster in the garbage disposal. Herbert, the creepy old guy, is Obi-wan. When he pulls out his light saber to fight Vader his saber goes flaccid, but when Chris (Luke) yells out to him his saber goes rigid again. In the disposal unit Peter finds a nice couch and decides that he wants it. So Peter and Chris try to drag the couch out to the Millennium Falcon. They had a hard time getting it out of the disposal so, after Lois tells him that there is not much time, Peter decides to remove all the pillows and the legs and then it will come out better. Then they have a hard time getting it into the ship, which leaves Peter outside of the ship holding on to the couch as the MF flies away. Inside the MF Peter and Chris are the fight against the tie-fighters and peter asks why they call them tie fighters (sorry star wars geeks if I am not spelling this stuff correctly, it has been a long night.) We then see inside of one of the fighters where there is a Taiwanese pilot. According to Green and MacFarlane The Robot Chicken and Family Guy Star Wars episodes have a lot of common gags (they were written and animated at the same time,) and the Family Guy one references a gag in the Robot Chicken one. I asked a question about what Seth MacFarlane felt about the South Park Manatee joke, to which he said that they had a response to that this season. When another question about the South Park guys came up, Seth said that he had to give credit to them for showing up to the Oscars in a dress. While signing items someone asked Seth Green about a fourth season of Robot Chicken. He said that it was "being talked about" and that he was not sure as it takes up a lot of time.

New episodes of "Family Guy" return to Fox Sept. 23. New episodes of "South Park" return to Comedy Central Oct. 3.

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