>>89760844Early Simpsons may have been crude but still involved a lot of drawing and cartooning. They employed a lot experimental angles and 'camera' direction and when the moment called for it, used wild expressions.
On the other hand there are just as many scenes where the characters stand around, expressionless, letting the dialogue and voice actors do the work.
Not to mention the show had a reputation for toning down animation and having lots of strict rules. They had a thick book about the do's and do not do's of animating The Simpsons, rivaled only by King of the Hill (Now THERE'S a show that could have just as easily been live action).
You also have to separate Simpsons then from Simpsons now. The latter being so dead and lifelessly animated that no animator would ever want to work on such a stifling show.
Family Guy has never had good animation period. In the early days it was wiggly, bland and akward looking. These days it's digital and lifeless. I guess technically you couldn't do it in live action because of the talking dog and random cutaways but it doesn't really make a case for 'taking advantage of the medium'.
Overall I think there are more better storyboard driven cartoons than there are script driven ones but it really comes down to different approaches and the kind of show you want to make.
