Fox Sunday Night Cartoon Scheduling Fail

[Tulin]

So after about two or three weeks of airing their new season of Sunday night cartoons(American Dad, The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show and Family Guy), for some inexplicable reason they are off for THREE WEEKS. Cut to last night and, a week after Halloween all four shows return with, yep, you got it, Halloween episodes.

Lame.


Fail Fox.

 

[Geck]

That's pretty much the way it goes every year. Fox always carries the baseball playoffs and World Series in the fall, meaning its Sunday night lineup is usually pre-empted for most of October. IIRC, the shows (or at least The Simpsons) didn't used to premiere at all until November, and the Halloween episode would be the season premiere. I for one am glad they've gone back to September premieres, even though it leads to the 3-4 week hiatus.

 

[Tulin]

Baseball, eh?

That's the American cricket, right?

 

[Mr Light]

No, Football is the popular one. Baseball comes third after basketball I think

 

[Christopher]

^You mean American football. What everyone else in the world calls football is what we Yanks call soccer. We're a strange, insular people.

 

[bigdaddy]

No, Football is the popular one. Baseball comes third after basketball I think

How to you base what is popular?

Lame American football and basketball are played during the fall and winter when people are inside more, they have three holidays that 90% of the population has off. So obviously more people watch them than maybe baseball. Baseball is still America's Past-time.

However the World Series and the basketball final series get about the same amount of viewers, depends on the teams.

I think Americans like "football" because they all have a lot of repressed homosexual feelings.

 

[Too Much Fun]

The biggest waste about the schedule screw-up this year was that this was a year when Halloween was on a Sunday. A rare opportunity to air Halloween episodes on the actual day and they blew it!

 

[jep316]

Of the four Halloween specials only Family Guy was barely passable and that was only because of the cringe worthy segment between Meg and Chris.

 

[Marc]

The biggest waste about the schedule screw-up this year was that this was a year when Halloween was on a Sunday. A rare opportunity to air Halloween episodes on the actual day and they blew it!

but then they'd argue that people are going to be out trick or treating so why waste a new episode when no-one is going to be home to watch it? (yeah I know about PVRs etc etc but they still want as many bums on seat for live viewings where they can't skip the ads).

 

[Skywalker]

Nowadays, most people are done trick or treating by the time the show would be on.

 

[the G-man]

That's pretty much the way it goes every year. Fox always carries the baseball playoffs and World Series in the fall, meaning its Sunday night lineup is usually pre-empted for most of October. IIRC, the shows (or at least The Simpsons) didn't used to premiere at all until November, and the Halloween episode would be the season premiere. I for one am glad they've gone back to September premieres, even though it leads to the 3-4 week hiatus.

Yes. This.

 

[the G-man]

Of the four Halloween specials only Family Guy was barely passable and that was only because of the cringe worthy segment between Meg and Chris.

BTW, what the hell is up with MacFarlane and

Spoiler: MacFarlane's comedic output

incest

jokes?

Off the top of my head I can recall, along with Meg and Chris

Spoiler: family guy

making out on Halloween

, the following:

Spoiler: family guy and american dad

Stewie hitting on Chris in the "Empire" spoof;
Peter trying to have sex with Meg when he was trying to be a redneck;
A throwaway gag about Billy Ray Cyrus fucking Miley when she's in her Hannah Montana costume;
On American Dad, Steve rubbing one out to an oil painting of Hayley.

 

[Yoda]

^You mean American football. What everyone else in the world calls football is what we Yanks call soccer. We're a strange, insular people.

It's not just Americans that call it soccer. But anyway, correcting someone from your own country using the correct word in favor of foreign terminology is just silly. What next, gonna start telling us to throw a "u" into "colour"?

 

[Tulin]

Well, that WA the correct spelling for a LONG time........anyway - yeah Australians call it "soccer" too, since we have two other games here that are called "football" in various parts of the country........or sorry, is that "contry"?

 

[Scout101]

Simpsons halloween special has been airing in November for what, 15 years now? Little late to suddenly have a complaint on that one...

It airs then to avoid conflicts with MLB world series, which Fox also airs. WS ended early this year, but had it gone longer, could have been on on Sunday, I believe. By airing it in November, there's no issue, and they can run promos without fear they'll have to pre-empt it...

 

[Yoda]

...or sorry, is that "contry"?

Hmm. Good point. The 'regular' spelling is a little too God Save the Queen for me... time to drop the 'u' and get My Contry Tis Of Thee going

 

[Christopher]

But anyway, correcting someone from your own country using the correct word in favor of foreign terminology is just silly.

Not at all. Mr. Light was responding to a post made by a British poster. Therefore, I wasn't "correcting" the speaker but was clarifying for the benefit of the listener.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

^You mean American football. What everyone else in the world calls football is what we Yanks call soccer. We're a strange, insular people.

Not everybody else calls it football, even if only a couple call it Soccer (mostly because other variants of football are more popular in these countries).

Anyway, it's been many, many years since the Simpsons aired Halloween episodes on Halloween. With other shows that night, there's a definite fear that the kids won't quite be done trick or treating when it's supposed to air. This solves that problem, at least.

 

[LitmusDragon]

They do this every year, but it's still lame.

 

[Christopher]

Anyway, it's been many, many years since the Simpsons aired Halloween episodes on Halloween.

Yup. Only Treehouse of Horror II (1991) and X (1999) actually aired on Halloween night, though all of the first ten were broadcast within the week before Halloween (on the nearest Thursday for ToH I-IV, the nearest Sunday for V-X). Ever since then, with one exception, they've been aired within a week after Halloween. (The change was because FOX got the broadcast rights to the World Series.) ToH XI was aired on Wednesday, Nov. 1. ToH XII was on Tuesday, Nov. 6. Ever since then, it's been on the first Sunday of November, with the exception of last year's ToH XX, which broke both patterns by airing on October 18 -- the only Treehouse of Horror not to be aired within a week of Halloween. But this latest one, ToH XXI, is tied with ToH XV for the latest broadcast date, November 7.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Simpsons_Treehouse_of_Horror_episodes


Anyway, is this thread just for discussing scheduling, or can we comment on the episode itself? I didn't watch it on Sunday since TCM was showing the restored Metropolis, but I caught it on Hulu yesterday and found it to be a weak effort. The only segment that was even mildly amusing was the Twilight parody, although not for the parody elements.