‘Simpsons’ Producer Al Jean Would Have Axed ‘Family Guy’ Crossover Rape Joke.

Simpsons Guy prank call

Al Jean, producer of The Simpsons, has admitted that he was not too find of a joke in his show’s recent crossover with Family Guy.

Making waves even before it aired, the joke from “The Simpsons Guy” involved Stewie unsuccessfully trying to prank call Moe by simply telling him that his sister was being raped.

“I’d actually said to [The Simpsons co-creator] Jim Brooks that maybe we should ask them to change that, just because the word is so offensive,” Jean said.

“He said – and I respect this – that’s what they do and we don’t want to be the heavy hand that censors them. But personally I would’ve omitted it.”

It’s worth keeping in mind that the episode was billed as a Family Guy show, and was written by that series’ writers, as opposed to an even collaboration.

However, Jean also attempted to downplay the negative response by pointing out that many news outlets took the joke out of context, failing to point out that Bart did not approve of Stewie’s prank. Which was the whole point.

“Stewie makes the joke and everybody looks at him, like ‘That is not funny’ – but a lot of reports missed that second part of it,” Jean clarified.

“The whole idea is that we don’t think that’s funny – we were saying, ‘We hate that joke.’”

Perhaps The Simpsons‘ objection was more obvious than most people thought.

[via Digital Spy]