Corus 20th Television Animation: The Complete 2026 Guide

Search “Corus 20th Television Animation” and you hit a wall of confused results. Two different media companies are tangled in that phrase, old ownership notes still float around, and fans cannot find one clear answer about who actually makes The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers. This guide untangles the names, maps the full studio catalog, and shows you exactly where to watch every show in 2026 — no spin, no guesswork.
Quick Facts: The 20-Second Answer
- 20th Television Animation is a division of Disney Television Studios. It is not part of Corus Entertainment.
- The studio produces The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, American Dad, King of the Hill, Futurama, and Solar Opposites.
- Fox ordered four new seasons of the studio’s four flagship comedies in April 2025. The agreement is valid through the 2028–2029 campaign.
- Corus Entertainment is a Canadian company that owns CTV, Global, and Teletoon. It sold the animation software firm Toon Boom in 2023.
- The Simpsons Season 38 premieres on Fox on September 27, 2026.
What Is Corus 20th Television Animation, Exactly?
Here is the straight answer: no single company goes by that name. The phrase bundles two separate media businesses that both work in animation.
- 20th Television Animation is the American studio behind The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad. It runs as a standalone unit inside Disney Television Studios, and its shows air on Fox.
- Corus Entertainment is a Canadian media company that owns CTV, Global, Teletoon, and STACKTV. Its animation story runs from buying the Nelvana studio in 2000 to selling Toon Boom Animation in 2023.
Why do the two names keep getting typed together? The phrase reads like one studio, and plenty of low-quality pages blur the two to catch search traffic. Most people searching for Corus 20th Television Animation actually want one of two things: the full catalog of Fox’s adult animation block, or the story of Canada’s animation industry. This page answers both, in that order.
The Studio That Actually Makes the Shows
20th Television Animation started in 1999 as Fox Television Animation. Fox built the unit to take Family Guy production in-house after Film Roman ran into financial trouble, and it began as a partnership with Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door company. That first move set the tone for everything after.
Two ownership changes define the studio’s history:
- 1999–2019, the Fox years. MacFarlane’s shows — Family Guy, American Dad, and later The Cleveland Show — anchored the studio. It added Bob’s Burgers in 2011 and took over The Simpsons production from Film Roman in 2016.
- 2019, Disney takes over. Disney completed its $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox in March 2019, and the studio moved inside Disney’s media empire.
- 2021, the rebrand. In mid-2021 the studio became 20th Television Animation, aligning with Disney’s wider 20th Television family of studios. It stayed a separate unit from 20th Television, the live-action sibling that Paramount bought in 2024.
Understanding how the studio works explains the schedule. Each flagship show runs a dedicated writing room that starts developing a season more than a year before it airs. Episodes move from scripts to voice recordings to outsourced 2D animation, a pipeline that stretches close to a year from greenlight to air date. The 15-episode season order means the writing rooms now trade raw volume for density, and the Disney+ exclusive episodes — holiday specials and one-off stories — exist to keep the production lines running between broadcast seasons.
Marci Proietto heads the division and is the public voice behind most of its announcements, from renewals to the Disney+ exclusive episodes. When you type Corus 20th Television Animation, this is the studio you almost certainly mean.
The April 2025 Four-Season Deal That Locked Everything In
On April 2, 2025, Fox and Disney Television Studios announced a mega-order: four new seasons each of The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad. The deal does a few things that matter to viewers, not just to studios:
- Every season runs 15 half-hours. That is a full season by current broadcast standards, and it keeps per-episode economics steady even with shorter orders.
- Everything runs through the 2028–29 broadcast season. The term matches Fox’s $1.5 billion Hulu extension, which gives Hulu in-season streaming rights to Fox’s scripted slate.
- American Dad returns to Fox. After eleven seasons on TBS and Max, the show goes back to its original network.
- Animation Domination gets its full lineup back. All four comedies share the Sunday block together for the first time since 2013–14.
Fox network president Michael Thorn called the order a celebration of “the eternal popularity of these iconic comedies” and the “enduring, prolific” partnership between the two sides. Marci Proietto, head of 20th Television Animation, called it “truly monumental” and said the shows will run “for hundreds of more episodes.”
The numbers behind the order are worth pausing on. All three flagship comedies ranked among the top-10 scripted comedies for adults 18–49 in the 2023–24 season, and Family Guy had been Fox’s most-streamed program for nearly a decade, averaging 9.4 million viewers per episode in 2023–24, according to Deadline’s coverage of the deal. Renewals that long are rare in broadcast because they pin a network’s Sunday schedule years out, so the four-year commitment is a bet on the entire block staying healthy, not just one show. If you follow Corus 20th Television Animation news, this is the story that shapes 2026: it locks in the block’s core for the next four years.
The Full Catalog at a Glance
The table below maps the Corus 20th Television Animation catalog, with status as of September 2026.
| Show | First aired | 2026 status | Where to watch (US) | Quick notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Simpsons | 1989 | Season 38 premieres September 27, 2026 | Fox; Disney+ (library plus exclusive episodes) | Longest-running scripted primetime series; ordered through Season 40 |
| Family Guy | 1999 | New episodes airing; ordered through Season 27 | Fox; Hulu; Disney+ | A perennial top-10 US streamer |
| Bob’s Burgers | 2011 | New episodes airing; ordered through Season 19 | Fox; Hulu; Disney+ | Got a theatrical film in 2022 |
| American Dad | 2004 | Back on Fox; ordered through Season 23 | Fox; Hulu; Disney+ | First Fox season in 11 years |
| King of the Hill | 1997 | Season 14 (August 2025) streaming; more seasons in the works | Hulu; Hulu on Disney+ | Revived after a 15-year hiatus |
| Futurama | 1999 | Season 8 aired 2023; new episodes ordered | Hulu | 30th-anniversary season |
| The Great North | 2021 | Concluded after Season 5 | Disney+ | Family comedy set in Alaska |
| Solar Opposites | 2020 | New seasons continue | Hulu | Sci-fi family comedy |
The film slate is shorter but meaningful. The Simpsons Movie (2007) grossed more than $536 million worldwide and remains one of the highest-grossing animated films ever made. The Bob’s Burgers Movie (2022) turned in a solid theatrical run and kept the franchise’s momentum going into its 15th season.
A second table captures the April 2025 order itself:
| Show | Seasons ordered | Episodes per season | Runs through |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Simpsons | 37–40 | 15 | 2028–29 season |
| Family Guy | 24–27 | 15 | 2028–29 season |
| Bob’s Burgers | 16–19 | 15 | 2028–29 season |
| American Dad | 20–23 | 15 | 2028–29 season |
Two notes on how to read these numbers:
- Season numbers follow each network’s official count. Fan wikis count differently because they split or drop specials, and that is where most “wrong season number” comments come from.
- “15 episodes” is the new normal. The old 22-episode broadcast season is mostly gone, and the 15-episode structure is what let Fox fit all four shows onto one night.
Where to Watch Every Show in the Corus 20th Television Animation Library in 2026
Ownership changes created two streaming homes, and the split still holds:
- Disney+ (US): The Simpsons library, plus the Disney+ exclusive episodes the studio produces each year. King of the Hill also lives here for bundle subscribers through the Hulu hub.
- Hulu (US): The Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad libraries, the King of the Hill Season 14 premiere, and Futurama.
- Disney+ after the Star merger: In late 2024 Disney folded the Star hub into Disney+ itself, which pushed most of this catalog onto both apps in the US at once.
- Fox (US broadcast): New episodes of The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad air Sunday nights inside Animation Domination.
- Canada: Disney+ Canada launched in 2021 with a content partnership that pulled in CTV and Global libraries, so it carries most of these shows. That partnership is the real Corus connection most Canadian searchers feel.
Practical tip: if you only keep one subscription, Disney+ covers the most ground in 2026 because the Star merger brought the comedy libraries into it. Hulu still matters for same-day access in the US under the Fox deal.
Outside the US the picture is simpler. Most of the library — The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad — streams on Disney+ in international markets, because Disney handles worldwide distribution of the catalog. Hulu itself reaches the UK and a handful of other regions, so viewers elsewhere watch everything on Disney+ anyway. In Canada, the Corus-powered library deal means Disney+ is effectively the single home for the entire catalog, which is another reason Canadian searchers associate the two names.
Corus Entertainment and Animation: The Other Half of the Phrase
Now the Canadian side. Corus 20th Television Animation searches often come from Canadian viewers, because Corus is where much of Canada’s animation industry ran through for the last 25 years.
- Nelvana (2000): Corus bought the legendary Toronto studio for $540 million to feed its kids’ brands — YTV, Treehouse, and Teletoon. Nelvana had created classics like Doug and ReBoot, and Corus grew it into a global co-production machine.
- DHX (2015): Corus later folded its Nelvana stake into DHX Media, the merged studio that kept producing for markets around the world.
- Toon Boom (2023): Corus sold Toon Boom Animation, the Montreal company whose 2D software powers animation teams from Disney to Fox, to IMC, an investment vehicle from TPG. The deal closed on August 24, 2023, and Corus used the roughly CAD 142 million to pay down bank debt, per its own newsroom release.
- Today: Corus still owns Teletoon, the kids’ channel that put Canadian animation on the map, plus STACKTV, its US streaming service built around Canadian content.
The overlap with Disney is real but indirect. Disney+ Canada launched in 2021 with Corus supplying CTV and Global library content, so Canadian viewers hit both brands in a single app. That is the practical reason the two names blur in search results.
Why Search Engines Keep Mixing the Two Up
Three forces drive the confusion, and knowing them helps you spot bad results fast:
- The “20th” brand family. 20th Television Animation, the old 20th Century Fox Television name, and 20th Century Studios all feel like one family. Content farms copy those phrases together and call it a day.
- Overlapping keywords. “Animation” plus a major Canadian company plus a major US studio produces long-tail queries where the two names collide.
- Outdated pages. Fox-era articles still say “Fox Television Animation,” while newer pages rush to attach “Corus” for search traffic. Neither version is fully right, and search engines reward whichever page is freshest.
If you are writing a press release, building a content site, or buying media around Corus 20th Television Animation, use the precise names. Disney Television Studios’ 20th Television Animation for the shows. Corus Entertainment for the Canadian side. Exact entity names keep your page out of the confusion pile.
The People Behind the Shows
- Marci Proietto — head of 20th Television Animation; the public voice of the division in renewal announcements.
- Seth MacFarlane — creator of Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show; all three began at this studio.
- Matt Groening — creator of The Simpsons and Futurama; his Gracie Films company co-produces The Simpsons alongside the studio.
- Loren Bouchard — creator and showrunner of Bob’s Burgers since 2011.
- Mike Judge and Greg Daniels — executive producers of the King of the Hill revival, with Judge back writing and voicing Hank Hill.
- Matt Selman — showrunner of The Simpsons for Season 38.
Key Dates: The Timeline That Explains Everything
- 1989 — The Simpsons debuts on Fox, produced by Film Roman.
- 1997 — King of the Hill debuts.
- 1999 — Fox Television Animation is founded and takes over Family Guy.
- 2004 — American Dad debuts.
- 2011 — Bob’s Burgers debuts.
- 2016 — The Simpsons production moves to the Fox studio.
- March 2019 — Disney completes its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
- Mid-2021 — the studio rebrands as 20th Television Animation.
- August 24, 2023 — Corus completes the sale of Toon Boom Animation.
- 2024 — Paramount buys 20th Television, the live-action sibling. Fox signs its $1.5 billion in-season streaming extension with Hulu. Disney folds the Star hub into Disney+.
- April 2, 2025 — Fox orders four seasons of the studio’s four flagship comedies.
- August 4, 2025 — King of the Hill Season 14 drops on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
- September 27, 2026 — The Simpsons Season 38 premieres on Fox.
What 2026 Holds for Fans
Here is the slate after the April 2025 mega-order, with the details that actually affect your viewing:
- The Simpsons, Season 38 — premieres Sunday, September 27, 2026, on Fox, with 15 broadcast episodes. Disney+ exclusive episodes run alongside the season, and Matt Selman is the showrunner.
- Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers — continue in the Sunday block under the same 15-episode structure, both ordered into the late 2020s.
- American Dad — deep into its return to Fox, with the four-season run carrying it through 2028–29.
- King of the Hill — Season 14 is available now, and more seasons are in the works after the revival’s success.
For anyone tracking Corus 20th Television Animation updates, September 27, 2026 is the date to mark. It is the first new Simpsons season under the four-year order, and the Sunday block is finally whole again.
How This Guide Stays Accurate
Every claim about Corus 20th Television Animation in this guide traces to the three sources listed below: trade-press coverage of the April 2025 deal, Corus Entertainment’s own newsroom release, and Disney+’s official King of the Hill page. Beyond those, the page follows a simple maintenance routine:
- Ownership changes and renewal deals get re-verified within 48 hours of any official announcement.
- Premiere dates and streaming availability get re-checked every quarter, before and after each fall schedule.
- Season numbers use the networks’ official counts, not fan-wiki tallies.
- When Disney or Corus changes the structure, this page updates first. That is the whole point of a pillar page.
Frequently Asked Questions About Corus 20th Television Animation
Is Corus 20th Television Animation a real company?
No. 20th Television Animation is a Disney Television Studios division that makes the Fox animated comedies, and Corus Entertainment is a separate Canadian media company. The combined phrase exists in search results because the two keep getting conflated.
Why do search results tie the phrase Corus 20th Television Animation together?
Both companies work in animation, and low-quality pages have mashed the names together for years. Canadian viewers also feel a real link, because Disney+ Canada runs on a content partnership with Corus.
What shows does 20th Television Animation produce in 2026?
The core four — The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad — plus King of the Hill, Futurama, and Solar Opposites. The catalog table above lists every major title with its streaming home.
Where can I watch The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers in 2026?
New episodes air Sunday nights on Fox in the US. Libraries sit on Disney+ (The Simpsons) and Hulu (Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers), and Disney’s late-2024 Star merger puts most of the catalog on both apps in the US.
What happened to Fox Television Animation?
It became 20th Television Animation in 2021 after Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox. That rename is why the phrase Corus 20th Television Animation trips people up: Fox the network still airs the shows, but it no longer owns the studio.
Did Corus sell an animation company recently?
Yes — a software company, not a TV studio. Corus sold Toon Boom Animation to TPG’s IMC vehicle in 2023 for roughly CAD 142 million. The deal closed on August 24, 2023, and Corus used the proceeds to pay down debt.
Bottom Line: Your Move
If you landed here after searching Corus 20th Television Animation, you now have the full map: a Disney studio makes the shows, a Canadian company owns the software and kids’ brands, and the two only touch inside Disney+ Canada.
Here is your next move:
- Watch — The Simpsons Season 38 premieres September 27, 2026, on Fox. Put it on your calendar tonight.
- Binge — King of the Hill Season 14 is already up on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
- Share — send this page to the one friend who still asks who owns the Simpsons.
- Save — keep this page as your reference for Corus 20th Television Animation. It updates whenever Disney or Corus moves, so the answer stays current.
One page. Two companies. Zero guesswork.