Animation Domination Prepares Lineup Shakeup For February As 'Family Guy' Returns
It’ll be a long 10 months that Family Guy will have been missing from Fox’s lineup, 14 from Sunday night’s animation block
If The Simpsons airing new episodes on the Sundays both before and after Christmas seemed weird (though it can be pointed out that they aired a new episode on Christmas Eve last season), it might have been to free up some slots. Universal Basic Guys also completed its first season this past Sunday, airing its 13 episodes over 17 weeks. It turns out, Animation Domination is going to continue its streak of, well, broken streaks come February, as Fox revealed in its recently-aired Winter Preview special.
What Animation Domination will look like in January is unknown, but on what will likely be February 16 or 23 (since Super Bowl LIX is February 9), we will see the return of Family Guy for the formal start of its 23rd season. After being pulled off of Sundays after the fall half of season 22, "The Return of the King (of Queens)" the series made its way to Wednesdays to air its back 6 episodes over this past March and April, its first time off Sundays since before its original cancellation. It was subsequently held for midseason, another first since that era that it wasn’t on the fall schedule, last happening because it returned from cancellation at the very end of the 2004-2005 season. Only Hulu-exclusive Halloween and Christmas specials aired in the regular season thus far. Now it has achieved taking its fourth Sunday night timeslot, taking over 8 PM. One might ask “How can it displace The Simpsons like that?”, but there were weeks that it switched positions with Universal Basic Guys.
However, The Simpsons won’t be at 8:30 either in this lineup. Instead, Grimsburg starring Jon Hamm will finally return for its second season, nine months after its first season finale in May. The season sees Martin Short join the cast. At 9 PM, The Great North will continue its fifth season, having just begun on December 22. Krapopolis, which last aired an episode December 15, will remain in the 9:30 PM slot it’s had all season. And yes, this means both The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers are both missing. Why they’re missing is unclear, but if Fox was retaking the 7 PM hour for premieres surely it would be indicated here as a fuller Animation Domination to hype. It would bring Bob’s back to the hour for the first time since season 8. If it’s not an extended hiatus (or instead is just something resembling Family Guy season 22’s back) it would move The Simpsons off of Sunday for the first time since 1994, and Bob’s Burgers for the first time ever. More details to clarify all this will come soon enough.
Thanks to Family Guy’s San Diego Comic-Con panel, we have the season’s logline which reveals “Peter accidentally exposes his inability to throw a ball… and Chris loses his earring in a Lord of the Rings-inspired escapade. Additionally, Stewie finds out his stuffed bear Rupert was made in China and makes it his mission to take him back there to meet his family.” In addition The White Lotus parody has the Griffin family vacation at a luxury resort, where Stewie worries that his wealthy new friends plan to sacrifice him in a volcano. Meg also starts dating the giant chicken’s son, whose name is Nugget. Guest stars will include Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Patrick Dempsey, Kyle Chandler, and Pete Davidson, who appears in live-action in a manner similar to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ty Burrell and Ashton Kutcher previously.
Source: Bubbleblabber