Family Guy Meets Grimsburg (Who?!) In New Hulu Halloween Special — Exclusive First Look
Family Guy is treating one of its fellow Animation Domination shows to quite the trick this Halloween.
In TVLine's exclusive sneak peek of Family Guy's Hulu special "A Little Fright Music," available to stream on Monday, Oct. 6, Chris decides to dress up as Jon Hamm's character from Fox's Grimsburg. It's a perfectly constructed costume, down to the titular detective's blue coat and grisly stubble, only with one slight hiccup — no one knows who he's supposed to be.
Watch the exclusive clip below:
Good-natured ribbing is common between these types of shows, and the executive-producing team at Family Guy doesn't seem particularly worried about offending the fine folks at Grimsburg — or anyone else for that matter.
"When you have a shared studio, we have the same studio executives, so if they think something is truly a problem, they'll get clearance," executive producer Richard Appel tells TVLine. "We're often asked [for clearance] when another animated show has a joke about Family Guy, but Seth Macfarlane set the rule here. The heavy presumption is that you can say what you want. I can't remember a time that we've said, 'no, you can't do it' or 'you can't even use a clip of our show,' just because the First Amendment, as we've been reminded lately, matters."
It's also worth noting that prior to Family Guy's recent string of Hulu specials, the show only produced three Halloween-specific episodes over the course of 20+ seasons. So, what's the reason for this holiday hold-out? The answer lies in the legacy of yet another Animation Domination show.
"I'm sure you are a student enough of the primetime animation lineup to know that we wouldn't exactly be the first to do a Halloween special," Appel says, referring to The Simpsons' annual "Treehouse of Horror" episodes. "It felt like they had carved that out as their niche." It was Hulu who requested the spooky specials, with Appel noting that "the challenge is to do something different in format. We wanted to do a full episode with an original story, not a satire or a parody or anything, just to set us apart a little."
Elsewhere in the Hulu-ween special, "Brian and Stewie realize there is a shortage of quality Halloween songs, so they set out to write a hit, and Peter and the guys discover that lying about trick or treating can have deadly consequences," per the official logline.
Hit PLAY on the video above to watch TVLine's exclusive sneak peek of Hulu's Family Guy Halloween special, then drop a comment with your thoughts below. Would you recognize Chris' costume?