Five Ill-Conceived Sitcom Crossovers
Long before Marvel was crossing over the superheroes in their films at every chance, prime-time sitcoms figured out that people love to see a character from one show appear in another. Or, at least, people like the idea of it. While some crossovers come off like Thor and Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok — an epic team-up with hilarious moments — others are more like Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy in Thor: Love and Thunder — a disappointing mess that fails to deliver on its potential.
Superheroes aside, here are the five most ill-conceived sitcom crossovers of all time…
‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Futurama’
The very idea of Homer Simpson sharing a few cans of Duff with Bender is inspired. Unfortunately, the Simpsons episode “Simpsorama,” which crossed over with Futurama, failed to deliver at every turn. The episode checks all the boxes for what you’d want to see these characters do together — Bender and Homer go to Moe’s, they bowl together, Professor Frink and Professor Farnsworth team up — but it all moves too quickly and the jokes don’t land. The concept of this crossover is great; unfortunately, its execution was about as pitiful as Dr. Zoidberg’s knowledge of medicine.
‘The Office’ and ‘The Office’
Before Steve Carell left the show, one of the few lame moments on The Office is when Michael Scott meets David Brent. The two bump into each other as Michael is getting on an elevator, and they have an impromptu conversation about their respective improv characters and comedy in general. It only lasts a minute, but the whole back-and-forth feels wildly forced. Both characters were the best parts of their versions of The Office, but the interaction comes off as sickenly cute. It also begs the question, what the hell was David Brent doing in Scranton?
‘Full House’ and ‘Family Matters’
To understand why having Steve Urkel on Full House was a bad idea, it’s best to think of Urkel as a kind of annoying contagion. He’d already infected all the Winslows in the character’s complete takeover of Family Matters, and then ABC exposed the virus to the Tanner household. Once there, he snorted in Stephanie’s face, annoyed the hell out of D.J. and taught Uncle Jessie how to walk like him (yes, while brief, Urkel did successfully make John Stamos look uncool). Fortunately, the Tanners survived the exposure, perhaps because they’d been inoculated by how annoying Kimmy Gibbler already was.
‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Family Guy’
If only because they’re Matt Groening’s two greatest properties, The Simpsons intermixing with Futurama at least had potential, The Simpsons and Family Guy had no business teaming up. The two shows are in entirely different classes of programming: The Simpsons is an American institution, part of the very fabric of this country, whereas Family Guy is, well, Family Guy. It’s like mixing a bowl of delicious Cheerios with a half-stale box of Great Value Brand Toasted O’s. Still, they did it anyway, and the results were, unsurprisingly, incredibly lame. After their characters compared their various catchphrases, they instantly became close friends, especially Homer and Peter Griffin.
But things take a turn when it's discovered that Peter’s drink of choice, Pawtucket Patriot Ale, is just Homer’s favorite beer, Duff, repackaged. While the episode tried to be a self-deprecating metaphor for how Family Guy is a clone of The Simpsons, the whole thing was produced by the Family Guy crew and written by a Family Guy writer, and the result feels like Family Guy pulled a lot of punches when it came to making fun of themselves. Instead of being a meta self-own, it only served to underline how unoriginal Family Guy really is.
‘Everybody Loves Raymond,’ ‘King of Queens,’ ‘Becker’ and ‘Cosby’
In the mid-to-late 1990s, the major TV networks began to more regularly pull their favorite stunt: all of their major programs on a given night would cross-over with each other. NBC did it with Seinfeld, Friends and Mad About You, while ABC did it with The Drew Carey Show, Ellen, Coach and Grace Under Fire. The worst example of this gimmicky programming block was during CBS’ “Shameless Crossover Monday.”
On November 16, 1998 CBS crossed Everybody Loves Raymond with King of Queens, which was a pretty natural pairing as Ray Romano and Kevin James made sense together. Before King of Queens began, James even had a recurring part on Everybody Loves Raymond as Ray’s friend Kevin (who appeared in eight episodes across the first three seasons). It was a bit weird to have two different characters played by Kevin James in Everybody Loves Raymond, but the reason why this crossover is so terrible is because Bill Cosby makes a cameo as Hilton Lucas, his character in his largely forgotten show Cosby from the late 1990s and early 2000s. While Cosby’s appearance occupied just once scene where James’ character delivers a package to him, that’s still enough for Cosby, the serial rapist, to taint the whole thing.
The same can be said for CBS’ “Even More Shameless Crossover Monday” in 1999, during which Ted Danson’s show Becker ed the mix. Unfortunately, even Danson’s limitless charm isn’t enough to overpower the monster that is Bill Cosby.
