In world of Trump satire, ‘Simpsons’ go medieval

‘Family Guy’ launches Season 16

LOS ANGELES, Sept 30, (Agencies): The creators of satirical animated series “The Simpsons”, who once eerily predicted Donald Trump would become US president, cannot keep pace with the comedy he is now inspiring and have decided instead to take family back to medieval times.

Bumbling Homer, housewife Marge, troublemaker Bart, prodigy Lisa and baby Maggie, who have captured the changing face of America over 28 years, become “The Serfsons” in the season 29 premiere on Fox on Sunday.

In 2000, “The Simpsons” joked in an episode titled “Bart to the Future” that Trump would enter the White House and said his presidency would ruin the economy.

But executive producer Matt Selman said the show, which takes more than a year to produce each season, cannot keep up with jokes about Trump since he won the 2016 election.

“There’s a massive industry of nothing but Trump comedy”, he said in an interview. “We can’t beat them to the punch. We can only show how Trump’s America has sadly seeped its way into Springfield”.

For the new series, the family live in a feudal medieval society where goblins, ogres and dragons exist, 8-year-old Lisa Simpson can do magic and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from “Game of Thrones” plays Marge’s horny twin brother.

“The Serfsons” includes references to an array of fantasy tales, from “Game of Thrones” and “Lord of the Rings” to “Conan the Barbarian”.

“In all fantasy, there’s always analogy to the modern world”, writer-producer Brian Kelley said.

In one episode, Marge’s aging mother Mrs Bouvier is slowly turned to ice and Homer and Marge try to find an alternate cure when they fail to get enough money for healthcare.

“While we were writing it, the world became much more horrifying, scary and evil”, Selman said.

“Wealth and equality and the 1 percent and healthcare — we just wrote those because we thought these were eternal issues, and then they turned into terrifying issues”, he added.

As everyone must know by now, Fox’s animated series “Family Guy” lives to lampoon human nature and human frailties, and does so without fear or favor.

There’s something bracing about “Family Guy” as it blows its whistle on a society that seems to grow ever coarser and more meanspirited, while individuals squawk at any hint of disrespect directed toward them and wilt at every trigger word.

For anyone weary of today’s reflexive correctness, the show, with its deft blend of the ingenious and the rude-and-crude, provides a counteractive safe space where no low blow, regardless of how low, is inadmissible. And so it carries on, as patriarch Peter Griffin and his family and friends begin their 16th season on Sunday (9:00 pm Eastern) on Fox.

With that in mind, show runners Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin recently shared some details of what lies ahead — including the series’ 300th episode, which won’t be just a milestone, Appel promises, “but one of our best”.

The season premiere, said Sulkin, “will be our shameless grab to win a (best show) Emmy” — an itch so far unscratched by the Television Academy.

As Peter embarks on his own For Your Consideration campaign, he will make “Family Guy” more like proven Emmy-winning shows, including not just comedy but also dramas and reality. Guest voices include Sofia Vergara, Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen, Louis C. K., Bill Maher, Christina Pickles and the late Adam West. What else? “We’ll have a special episode where (precocious toddler) Stewie is in therapy for the entire half-hour”, said Sulkin, “with the therapist played by Sir Ian McKellen”.

“Stewie actually learns something about himself”, said Appel — “as opposed to everyone else’s therapy”.

Another episode, titled “Three Directors”, will tell the same simple story — Peter losing his job — within the half-hour, “but each version is told in the style of Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Michael Bay”, Appel said.

“We have an episode where Brian (the erudite, articulate family dog) and Stewie go back to Victorian England and play Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson”, said Sulkin. “That seems like something we might have done before, but we actually hadn’t”.

The series, which premiered in 1999, was created by Seth MacFarlane, who handed over the reins as showrunner in 2010 to pursue other projects, including the two “Ted” films and, currently, his new Fox sci-fi series “The Orville”, which he created, wrote and stars in.

But he continues to voice a number of favorite “Family Guy” characters, “and while he’s recording if there are things that he doesn’t like, or DOES like, he will let us know”, Sulkin said.

One of MacFarlane’s signature elements in the show is its cutaway gags and comic asides. Peppered through each episode’s 22 minutes, those cutaways are where some of its sharpest and most devilish comedy resides, and where the series takes its wildest flights of fancy.

“It’s one of Seth’s brilliant strokes”, said Appel. “The cutaways predate YouTube and Hulu clips, and anticipated the shared content of my kids’ generation. When people watch 30- or 60or 90-second bits that they like, that they think is funny, they’ll follow the trail to the whole show those bits came from. ‘Family Guy’ is popular because hopefully it’s good, but the cutaways serve as a lifeline to the show in some ways”.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: ABC is developing a one-hour drama series based on the Charles Dickens novel “A Tale of Two Cities”, Variety has learned exclusively.

Titled “Two Cities”, the series is described as a modern update of Dickens’ novel set against the backdrop of a society on the verge of revolution, where the tensions between the haves and have-nots has reached a breaking point. At the center of the story is Lucy Manette, who’s rehabilitating a stricken father she’s only just met while caught between two men she loves for different reasons.

Eyal Podell and Jonathon Stewart will write and executive produce. Mandeville TV will produce in association with ABC Studios.

Podell and Stewart most recently contributed to the original story for “Cars 3”. They also sold a pitch for a drama about a minister who reveals he is gay last season, also at ABC. Prior to that, their feature script “Seuss” landed them one of the top spots on the 2012 Black List. Both men have also worked as actors in their careers, with Podell having appeared in shows such as “The Young and the Restless”, “24”, “JAG”, and “The West Wing”, as well as films like “Behind Enemy Lines”. Stewart appeared in the 2002 comedy film “The Sweetest Thing” and wrote and co-directed the short “Doing Time”.

Podell and Stewart are repped by Verve, Industry Entertainment and attorneys James Feldman and Josh Sandler.

This is the latest book to be put into development as a broadcast series this season.