Family Guy Thread (Ladies and Gentleman, Mr Conway Twitty!)

[Andrew]

About all you can hope for is that the jokes will be on target because if the laughs aren't coming, it's not a fun twenty minutes of television.

I read in a recent interview with Seth MacFarlane that he doesn't expect the series to run anywhere near as long as The Simpsons and that they're starting to run out of ideas, which was refreshingly honest. It kind of came off as a bit of a shot at The Simpsons though which isn't exactly misplaced but a little rich given that The Simpsons was in its prime when it hit 100 episodes, whereas Family Guy struggled up to its hundredth and has been plummeting to new depths ever since.

[J@3]

Why do you guys care so much about the swipes at celebrities? If anything it's one of the few parts of the show I enjoy.

[Andrew]

I'm not opposed to them per se, but in recent seasons I've haven't much cared for them. To me they're getting a bit tacky and often hypocritical or just plain misplaced. They're also getting pretty repetitive and stale with the same people or shows targetted and some of them are bewilderingly outdated or done to death, like the cutaway that made fun of Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch (about 20 years too late on that one). I don't mind a comedy series sending up another series or a celebrity but the way Family Guy has been doing it the last couple of years just hasn't been all that funny in my opinion, too smug and fratboyish. If nothing else, I just find them unamusing and boring, especially when they go to the trouble of a really long cutaway to take a shot at someone.

Oh, and people who use a three minute cutaway to footage of Conway Twitty on Hee-Haw to make time on an episode really shouldn't be making fun of anyone else's comedy stylings or abilities. Fifteen seconds of it was funny due to the random nature of it, three minutes was a wretched excuse for a joke.

[JaoSming]

It was horrible, but nearly every single post you've made about family guy since it aired has expressed your personal displeasure with the Conway Twitty cutaway shenanigans.

[Andrew]

I know, but it's the perfect example of how bad some of the cutaways have become and I truly hated it that much. The Matthew McConaughey one is a good example of a celebrity bashing that went on too long and Matthew McConaughey isn't even one of my favourite actors (truth be told, I don't think I've ever watched a movie with him in it, at least not in a prominent role). Cutaways are a good comedic technique but they just aren't using them very well.

On a more positive note, I caught the episode where Peter becomes a pirate again the other day and it was probably one of the better ones in recent years, better than I remembered it. Some good jokes in that one, including the scene in the vet after the parrot dies.

Anna: I'm sorry about your Dad's parrot.
Chris: That's OK. He'll find a new wacky thing soon enough
Peter: (offscreen) Hey Lois, whose pipe organ is this?

[el badman]

Why do you guys care so much about the swipes at celebrities? If anything it's one of the few parts of the show I enjoy.

They used to be for me too, but they've been gradually slipping into apparent bitterness, just cheap and uninspired shots. And the more annoying they are, the longer they usually happen to last, which makes them even more frustrating, and tends to ruin whatever thread of "story" was left to follow.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that actually sums it up better than my rambling post. Also, I find those shots funnier when I feel the target is deserving of the criticism, but then that comes down to personal preference and opinion.

[el badman]

I think the best example for that is a rerun that I saw a couple of days ago, the one where pot becomes legalized in Quahog. Peter is so wasted that he cannot complete the now frankly annoying " it's almost as bad as that time I..." intro to a cutaway, and ends up saying "here's a list of celebrities I don't like", and they show a list of maybe 20-30 celebs. I can't really remember any of their names, some of them were certainly part of the standard laughing stock when it comes to celebrities, but others really seemed out of place. So you know that the whole thing is pretty damn random, but you still wonder what McFarlane could have against those people when there's nothing particularly amusing about them, and it comes out as bitter and as a cheap way to fill seconds or minutes that he has no clue how to use in a more creative way.

[Andrew]

Agreed. I kind of liked that joke as they poked fun at themselves for once and I appreciate a bit of self-deprecating humour, but at the same time you can't give them too many points just for admitting it. That episode was another example of lazy social commentary too. That's another thing, even though I tend to have similar points of view to Seth MacFarlane when it comes to various issues in society (at least based on various interviews with him), they get so self-righteous about things these days. Brian used to have a lot of witty quips but now more than ever he's MacFarlane's on-screen avatar to get on his soapbox...or push the envelope with beastiality jokes. The Simpsons and South Park are a lot better at getting a message across.

Getting back to more positive things though, I am really looking forward to Darkside. I think it helps that Star Wars is something they're actually fans of since even though they're sending it up, it's done with some affection and the humour's a lot better for it.

[benji]

That joke el_badman mentions is actually better than the standard ones because it's poking fun at Family Guy itself. (As Andrew said.)

The problem with Family Guy is not the jokes, cutaways, celebrity bashing, etc. It's that they're just interchangeable to the plot/episode. 95% of them you can take from any episode and put them in any other episode. The plots are absolutely shit and horrible.

And Robot Chicken does the same thing, re: cutaways, but better.

I mentioned it a few times in the past, but take the Peter becomes pirate, Surfing Bird, the retarded horse, the Stewie plot with the TNG crew, the rest of the episodes are horrible but these ten minute segments are pretty brilliant (not always, I can appreciate some like the retarded horse even if I don't find it to be that great) for a Family Guy hater like me. The problem is they bog down the entire show with twenty minutes of crap (MEG BECOMES A CHRISTIAN, THEY HAVE TO MOVE TO TEXAS, etc.) when these shorter segments are pretty good.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, they have one joke, they stretch it out, then go past when it's funny, and then still have twenty minutes to fill and fuck that up.

Look up the FOX NEWS episode in the old thread, IIRC I put out a number of suggestions to accurately and directly take shots at what Faux News does, but they ignored that completely for some lame joke about Fred Savage and homosexuals?

[Andrew]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, they have one joke, they stretch it out, then go past when it's funny, and then still have twenty minutes to fill and fuck that up.

Yeah, running jokes into the ground and trying for the old "it's gone on for so long it's funny again" approach seems to be in vogue. Thought I have to admit I'm a fan of the rake scene in The Simpsons way back in Season 5.

[benji]

You can go long and keep it funny, the first time Peter hurt his knee lived in this, and when Lois did it they shortened it and it continued to work. But Conroy Twitty took the wrong joke too far.

[Andrew]

I'd throw the chicken fight in there as well, even if it is one of the series' trademark jokes. The first time it was alright and when they changed it up with the chicken and his wife taking Peter out for dinner to apologise before another fight breaks out was good for a change but other than that I'm not a huge fan.

[benji]

Venezuelan authorities plan to impose fines on cable television companies that refuse to stop airing the animated television series "Family Guy."

Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami says the program should be pulled from the airwaves because it promotes the use of marijuana.

El Aissami was outraged by a recent episode in which the show's characters started a campaign to legalize marijuana.

He said Thursday that cable networks that broadcast "Family Guy" would be fined by Venezuela's telecommunications regulator if they refuse to dump the program.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... .DTL&tsp=1

[Andrew]

Jeez...I mean, I thought it was a weak episode and all but still, a fine's a little much just because Seth and co got on their soapbox.

[ixcuincle]

This episode is basically the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where Homer went to different dimensions

[JaoSming]

yep, but a pretty damn good Family Guy episode despite it not being original

[ixcuincle]

'Twas alright. Best was the Disney dimension.

[el badman]

I thought the Disney part was really fun and well executed, and it had a few good jokes here and there, but nothing phenomenal besides that. At least, there weren't that many useless cutaways or annoying fillers this time around...

[Andrew]

It was good for a recent Family Guy episode, though the pop culture swipes were kind of lame. Not that I was offended, but making fun of a 60s television show and an actress in her 50s is hardly edgy. The old standby of making fun of Meg was kind of hit and miss throughout the different universes. Again, not that it offends me or that I care about the character that much, but it's predictable and stale. Quite a few of the alternate universe jokes were a bit uninspired, but there were some good moments too. The Disney universe was probably the highlight. On the whole, alright but nothing special.

Just about to watch The Cleveland Show. I'm not expecting great things from that one.

[JaoSming]

Brian: This doesn't seem to make sense, Lois. How can you be Jewish?
Lois: Well Brian, maybe you should just accept it or go post with the nerds on the Internet.
Peter: Oh boy, my wife is Jewish. This is more unexpected than the time I laughed at Scrubs.

Cutaway to Peter watching Scrubs on TV with poor impressions of the actor's voices and dialogue. Peter laughs and says "We're better than them." Eight minutes of Conway Twitty follows.

Well they played the Jewish part of it pretty well. They did do a stupid side story for the first 10 minutes, but I found that funny too so I wont penalize them for that.

Loved the Conway Twitty reference Quagmire did when he was thinking he got the spinoff.

[el badman]

As usual lately, a mediocre episode with a few great highlights, which all happened to feature Quagmire.
His cutaway about his own spinoff was really quite good, but it makes you wonder if it's an honest acknowledgment that they went too far with the giant chicken and Conway Twitty, or if it's a fake admission just for the heck of it. Besides that, I thought there really wasn't much subtlety with the Jewish stereotypes, a few jokes were funny but most were kinda cheap. At least, they weren't too many celeb/various cutaways that lasted forever, so that's always a plus.
And what's with the superhero introduction that led nowhere (with the usual Meg joke)?

[JaoSming]

I chalked that up as something similar to the Law & Order and Botched regular intros. Or the Naked Gun one.

[Andrew]

His cutaway about his own spinoff was really quite good, but it makes you wonder if it's an honest acknowledgment that they went too far with the giant chicken and Conway Twitty, or if it's a fake admission just for the heck of it.

I thought it was making fun of the criticism in a roundabout way, a kind of a sarcastic "let the nerds on the Internet have their moment, while at the same time exposing them as nerds" kind of joke. But they did kind of make fun of themselves at the same time, so I don't know.

I'd have to say it was a decent episode, a little better than average though I enjoyed the opening more than the main plot itself. Opening was kind of a waste of time for yet another Meg joke that was pretty much like all the other ones they've been telling for years. The cutaway with Peter having the "turf war" with the cat was the highlight for me, one of those "so stupid it's funny" jokes.

[JaoSming]

pretty good one. didnt like when they made fun of their own cut away sequences but the beginning part was hilarious when they were fighting over the bathroom

also found it funny that Cleveland show is funnier in cutaways in Family Guy than the show itself.