Take That/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

** One episode has Bart and Milhouse watching an obvious pastiche of ''[[South Park]].'' The Kyle-pastiche mentions that they're at a concert with a band consisting of Steve Guttenberg, Calista Flockhart and Farty the Crippled Robot. Farty farts out OJ Simpson, who declares he's gonna kill everyone and says how he's gonna find the real killer. This is followed by Bart wondering, "How do they keep things so fresh after 43 episodes?" ''[[South Park]]'' had previously lampooned ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', noting that the show's extremely long run had made it [[The Simpsons Did It|hard to find new ideas]].

** The show took occasional jabs at ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'', particularly the long gaps between new episodes. One notable example also mocked their tendency to re-use old animation with newly dubbed voices, with a scene with Bart, Lisa and Marge doing this and commenting on how ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' do this all the time.

** Seems this rivalry is over now. Just recently ''[[John Kricfalusi]]'' did the couch gag for a recent episode.

** The show has ripped into ''[[Family Guy]]'' and ''[[American Dad]]'' a couple of times, though Groening has described his rivalry with [[Seth MacFarlane]] as "affectionate", and MacFarlane even contributed the opening song for the last ''[[Futurama]]'' movie.

*** In the Tree House of Horror XVII short "Homer the Blob", Homer eats a space-blob of goo that is trying to escape his body. Homer then proceeds to say "If I can keep down Arby's, I can keep down you!" After many ruthless escapes going as far as ''out his nostrils and ears''.

*** From season 8's "A Milhouse Divided":

'''Kirk van Houten:''' "Just throw it over the fence and [[Somebody Else's Problem|let Arby's deal with it]]." }}

** [[The Simpsons]] have also taken a jab or two at Mountain Dew, the most memorable of which being from "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson."

'''Vendor:''' Mountain Dew or [[Squick|Crab Juice]]<br />

'''Homer:''' Blech, ewwww! I'll take the Crab Juice! }}

** There's been two shots taken at [[Disney Theme Parks|Disney's California Adventure]]. Granted, it's been absolute [[Snark Bait]] since it opened...

** The Comic Book Guy acts as a walking [[Take That]] to geeky [[Fan Dumb]] everywhere.

'''Comic Book Guy:'''*beat* Worst episode ever. }}

** In one episode, Homer watches ''A Prairie Home Companion'' and starts shaking his TV screaming, "Be more funny!"

** In one episode, Lenny and Carl are at a church ring toss game, and Carl remarks, "Ah, it's all a big scam." Lenny asks, "This booth?" Carl replies, "No, religion in general."

*** Similarly, in ''The Movie'', as Grandpa starts speaking-in-tongues in church:

'''Homer''': ''(reading a Bible)'' I'm trying, but this book doesn't have any answers! }}

** MAD magazine seems to come under fire a little as well, with most of the "hilarious" satire being weak and simplistic.

** Then ''Broadway Bro Down'' featured Randy trying to sabotage a Wicked production to save his daughter from "subliminal subtext." "It's time to put an end to Broadway!" He slips into a spider man costume and heads off to ruin the production...

** After "Blame Canada" lost the Best Song Oscar to Phil Collins' "You'll Be in My Heart," the episode "Timmy 2000" depicted Collins always clutching his Oscar, using underhanded tactics to break up Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld.

'''Doctor:''' [[My God, What Have I Done?|My God. What have we done?]] }}

** Liane Cartman, is a real-life Take That at Trey Parker's ex-fiance, who cheated on him. Liane Cartman is often described as a "slut" and a "crackwhore." Parker had previously made a similar Take That in ''[[Cannibal! The Musical]]'' by naming an unfaithful horse "Liane."

** A subtle one against ''[[Family Guy]]'': in 1999 Pizzeria Panucci has a FG calendar with Brian and Stewie on the cover, which says "One laugh a month!".

** Cleverly done in "Silence of the Clamps" as a form of self criticism:

'''Fry''': '''(laughs)''' Billy West? What kind of dumb made up name is that? }}

* ''[[Family Guy]]'' has made a few shots in return for all the abuse that it's taken. It's also open for debate whether its frequent skewering of popular culture and society constitutes various forms of Take That, [[Affectionate Parody]], ''Non''-Affectionate reference or some combination thereof.

** In the [[Cold Open]] of the fourth season, Peter listed off [[The Long List|all the shows that Fox had tried to air between the time Family Guy was cancelled and resurrected]] - twenty-nine, to be specific.

** They once took a shot at Courtney Love. Let's just say Kurt Cobain quit taking drugs and never committed suicide.

'''Executive:''' ''...who?'' }}

** In a [[The Naked Gun|Naked Gun]]-style opening sequence, Stewie runs Homer down in the Griffin family garage. Peter walks in and says "Who the hell is that?"

*** Which lead to the hilarious ending of ''Blue Harvest''. And it gets even better [[Actor Allusion|when you realize exactly which two people do the voices for the characters involved...]]

*** Echoed in ''Road To The Multiverse'', where Stewie and Brian's ''[[Sliders]]''-parodying universe tour includes a brief stop in the [[Robot Chicken]] world.

'''Stewie:''' How's it feel to be on a major network for 30 seconds?<br />

'''Chris:''' FUCK YOU! }}

*** It didn't help that when Fox refused to air the sequence, Seth responded with a long rant on the DVD commentary for the episode where he said ''The Simpsons'' was awful and Fox was showing unfair favoritism toward it -- which is true, but the real reason Fox refused to air the bit is because it features Quagmire ''murdering kids'' (Bart, Lisa, and Maggie).

** In "Mother Tucker", Brian accuses Stewie of selling out. Cut to Stewie holding a Butterfinger bar and saying, "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger... D'oh!" [[Hilarious in Hindsight|Ironically]], Peter Griffin would go on to do advertisements for Subway, and a Stewie parade balloon would appear on a Coke commercial in the 2008 [[Super Bowl]].

** Note that the rivalry between ''[[Family Guy]]'' and ''[[The Simpsons]]'' is a friendly one, and Matt Groening has even told Seth MacFarlane that he likes the show.

** And a deleted scene from "Lois Kills Stewie." "There's the guy who watched ''[[The Simpsons]]'' back in 1994/And won't admit the damn thing isn't funny anymore."

** Peter, Brian, and Stewie have an entire song dedicated to how they feel about the FCC (or rather, he, since [[Talking to Himself|Seth MacFarlane voices Peter, Brian, and Stewie]]).

** And ''[[Family Guy]]'' probably got the greatest [[Take That]] of all time, in the episode ''Boys Do Cry'', where Peter concluded the episode by speaking directly to [http://www.parentstv.org/ all the people complaining the show is encouraging children to mimic bad behavior].

** There were a few shots at ''Entertainment Weekly'' magazine earlier in the show's run. One scene had the magazine as a suggestion for toilet paper, and another one had a character beat up a reporter from it. This was possibly done in response to the negative reviews that the magazine gave ''Family Guy'' in it's initial run (even calling it the "fifth worst show of the year" during the second season).

*** You can't forget that they called it the "worst show of the year" in its first season.

* In one episode, Chris says, "This is just like [[My Two Dads|that sitcom where there's two dads]], except no one's laughing. [[Oh, Wait!|No, wait]]. It's the same."

* ''[[Totally Spies]]'' takes an obvious dig at ''[[Kim Possible]]'':

* The original title for ''[[Animaniacs]]'' was ''Bonkers'', but Disney already had a series by that name. Every so often, the characters made unflattering comments about ''Bonkers'', such as Slappy saying that her nephew is dumb from watching it, or one of the items on a scavenger hunt being a funny episode of it.

** ''Animaniacs'' kind of likes taking potshots at Disney in general. "Jokahontas" takes a few. For starters, a song about how formularic and unoriginal their heroines are, John Smith has red pants with two yellow buttons and a catch on his helmet to release a pair of round ears. Oh, and John Smith is [[Animated Actors|Mel Gibson. Straight up.]] Not voiced by him, but it's still hard to miss.

** In the same season, the original ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' series itself also provided a [[Take That]] directed at ''One Saturday Morning'' during its [[Grand Finale]], the "Brainwashed" trilogy - Pinky makes a jab at [[Disney]]'s <s>bastardization</s> [[Retool|ReTooling]] of ''[[Doug]]'' by saying that the Schmarskāhnathon will mean "another preemption for ''Brand Spanking Fresh and Shiny New Doug''."

** And then there was this:

'''Pinky:''' You mean [[Disney Theme Parks|Orlando]]? }}

*** PEATB used a similar line in an episode where they visted [[Mr. Alt Disney|Duckyland]]:

'''Pinky:''' Oh no, Brain. Narf! You're thinking of that other park in Orlando. }}

* In the [[Made for TV Movie]] ''Re-Animated'', Sonny Appleday is supposed to have destroyed the legacy of his father, Milt Appleday, ruined the reputation of his cartoons, and nearly bankrupted his company by trying to do a [[Totally Radical]] update of the cartoons using [[Synchro Vox]]. This is attacking ''[[Loonatics Unleashed]]''.

** [[Insult Backfire|It backfired.]] The shippers loved it.

* In ''[[My Life as a Teenage Robot]]'' Jenny gets a hearing upgrade with different settings.

* The animated movie ''[[Batman: Mask of the Phantasm]]'' features a fight between Batman and the Joker in a delapidated park that strongly resembles a cross between EPCOT and Tomorrowland of Disney World. During the course of their fight, it is completely demolished, finishing off with the huge sphere burning to cinders as it falls to the ground, just before the entire place blows up.

** [[Word of God]] says that it was directly inspired by the World's Fair, as it tied in well with the show's art deco-inspired style. It looks like Epcot because Epcot itself was also inspired by the 1939 fair.

* In the ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "Summer Belongs to You", the titular duo and their friends get stranded on a deserted island, and Phineas frantically tries to find something they can use to continue their journey. He digs a massive hole in the ground, and at one point comes back up holding [[SpongeBob SquarePants|a sponge and a starfish]]. "There's gotta be ''something'' we can make out of this!" He pauses, then throws them both away, saying "Aww, oh no, that's ridiculous." It becomes [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] when you realize that P&F co-creator Dan Povenmire worked on episodes of that show. So it's more of a [[Take That]] towards [[Black Comedy|what the show]] [[Sadist Show|has become]].

** They also featured a quite a few directed at Twilight in the episode The Curse of Candace.

:: The song of the episode mocks Twihards and their habits, shopping choices, general gothic attitude.

** A '''HUGE''' one toward [[Moral Guardians]] in "Quantam Boogaloo".

* ''[[The Boondocks]]'' has too many of these to count because it's based on a comic built around the trope.

* ''[[Freakazoid]]'', in the episode "[[Candle Jack]]" :

'''Kids:''' AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!! *run into cabin and hide* }}

** Not to mention the episode where he gets teleported back in time and prevents the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He then goes to see what has changed. He finds a theater playing [[Macbeth]] with Sharon Stone. He is shocked to find she is good. "She's really good. Sharon Stone can act!" He also sees Rush Limbaugh became a bleeding heart liberal. Then he picks up a paper and also learns Euro Disney is packed, Cold Fusion works, and there are no Chevy Chase movies!

** In another episode, Buster creates a self-aggrandizing cartoon based around his own imaginary adventures. Describing the premise to his friends, Arthur notes that the show is supposed to be "edutainment," which causes everyone to recoil in disgust.

** There were also several Take Thats against ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]'', which was represented in the show as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwh_ekDGhlA ''Peabrain and Nutthead''] several times.

'''Buster:''' Neither do I, but they don't have to know that. }}

* Soon after [[Futurama]] left [[Adult Swim]] for [[Comedy Central]], [[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]] featured one relevant to that point, where Meatwad complains of wanting to watch Futuruma, and Shake tells him to go over to "Carl Central," where they have Futurama on all the time. He bitterly remarks that Carl didn't even like Futurama until the Aqua Teen started watching it, a reference to Comedy Central producing new episodes of Futurama after the show had already been airing in reruns on Adult Swim for several years.

** Another episode has Carl's girlfriend telling her kids' babysitter that the children are only allowed to watch animated programs, and therefore "No Cartoon Network". At the time, Cartoon Network was coming under fire for the increasingly large amount of live-action and reality shows being aired on the channel.

* Saleen, a mermaid character from [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]], actually pokes fun at [[The Little Mermaid|another famous Disney mermaid]]. She has red hair, but is more villainous and tries to [[A Worldwide Punomenon|land herself a human man]] more [[For the Lulz]] rather than for love.

** She also gives Jasmine the hairstyle of said mermaid, but complains it "Looks like every other Princess under the sea".

* The ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" could be seen as a [[Take That]] towards over-use of [[Limited Animation]] and the various attempts to water down the Loony Tunes franchise. It involves Bugs Bunny's rivals being replaced by [[Stepford Smiler|eerily-cheerful]], [[Off-Model|badly-drawn and badly-animated]] clones from the planet Nudnik (named for a Russian [[Limited Animation]] series), including Daffy briefly being animated in [[Synchro Vox]].