Over the summer, FOX released a trailer for their crossover episode of The Simpsons and Family Guy. That 4-minute trailer featured a scene where Bart, Stewie and Brian call Moe the bartender. If you’re familiar at all with The Simpsons, you’re familiar with this prank sequence.
Is there an Al there? First name Al, last name Coholic.
Is there an Oliver there? Oliver Closeoff.
And so on and so forth.
In the crossover episode, Bart pulls another fast one on Moe and then Stewie jumps in and tries one of his own.
“Hello Moe, your sister’s being raped.”
And now everyone’s flipping out about it. Tim Winter of the Parents Television Council (I can’t believe that’s a thing) has stepped in.
“I was blown out of my shoes when I saw the scene with the rape joke in it,” Winter said. “It really troubled me.”
Hmm, maybe not in good taste but “troubling?”
He said he found it particularly offensive in the context of stories about sexual assaults on college campuses and, most recently, talk about abusive treatment of women by some players in the National Football League. He said when rape is accepted as a punch line for a joke in entertainment, “it becomes less outrageous in real life.”
Winter has not received a response from creators Matt Groening or Seth MacFarlane and as far as we can tell, the joke will air on Sunday.
