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

[ixcuincle]

Latest ep was pretty bland. South Park had a much funnier take on the physic stuff, Chris' subplot was pretty pointless and most of the jokes fell flat. I'd actually rate the latest Cleveland Show better than this one.

The episode basically made very similar points to the 2nd SP episode with John Edward (about the vague questions and stuff), and the ending stank. I didn't really like this episode other than the Stewie song and dance routine.

[Andrew]

I immediately thought of those episodes while I was watching it. Once again, Family Guy is very late to the party.

[Andrew]

Lois hit a new low in the latest ep, but at least they had her feel bad about it. I saw it turning into another "We screwed over Meg, oh well, it's just Meg" type scenario so it was actually refreshing to have her act somewhat like she did in the original run. Well, less useless and more of a character than usual post-revival. Some creepy stuff with Peter as well, but on the whole funnier than usual. Far from the best, but fresher and more entertaining than most FG eps these days.

[Oznogrd]

the no legs joke at the beginning floored me however

[Andrew]

Yeah, the red wagon and Peter's reaction made that one.

[Andrew]

Not a horrible episode, but probably the one with the most disturbing moments in a while. Angela's fantasy of Peter was very unsettling. The all too frequent complaint about jokes that try to be funny because they're going on so long but just end up dying a painful death can be lobbed at this one too. I like those kind of jokes when they're done well, but you've got to pick and choose and this episode wasn't selective enough.

[Phil89]

It was good to see that for once in a cartoon, a person wearing a moustache was actually recognised by the another character as themselves.

[Andrew]

True, I quite liked the ending.

[el badman]

I kinda liked it. Still no plot to write home about but at least the jokes have gotten better, closer to the first seasons, and with less cheap celebrity bashing. The latest episodes have been far superior than the last couple of seasons before that, so that's good news I hope.

[PAN WANKZ]

Family Guy is for kids.
Nice! After watching it you can continue dancing around your chair .

[Andrew]

Somehow, I wouldn't call Family Guy particularly appropriate for children.

[el badman]

Can't say I liked that episode. I just felt like deja vu during most of it, with Brian finally getting his big break, but then it turns out he has to compromise and sell out, and the outcome is not at all what he was initially going for...Wasn't that done 2 or 3 times before already? And the Stewie part was just meh.

[buzzy]

I think it wasn't too bad, First couple of minutes were pretty funny, though once Stewie was out it got kinda flat.

[Andrew]

Had its moments, but the James Woods stuff has been done to death. At least they didn't reprise the "Ooh a piece of candy!" schtick, that would've been painful. I kind of like Charlie Sheen's cameo, nice that Family Guy poked fun at itself for a change and got down off their high horse. All in all, pretty ordinary though.

[adv1s5]

Agreed, pretty ordinary. I do have to say the opening sequence got me pretty interested. I always enjoy it when Seth goes all out and gets an orchestra to score the music and do all that CG stuff just because its cool, like the Blue Harvest/Something Something Darkside movies and Stewie/Brian episodes. The Christmas special for American Dad, for example, had really little to do with anything related to the show, but was just awesome anyway.

[Andrew]

The opening sequence wasn't bad, but ran a little too long for my liking.

[Phil89]

Peter throwing Stewie under the car was pretty horrible

The bit where the studio audience laughed after every word the actors said was funny though. I hate shows with laugh tracks like Two and a half men.

[Andrew]

I'll actually defend Two and Half Men as one of those shows that isn't too bad to watch when you're just having a lazy evening in front of the TV, but not the kind of show I'd watch religiously. I also tend to think shows with a laugh track get a bad rap unnecessarily on principle and they're not all bad or without their own entertainment value, but having said that it was pretty on-target shot at how bad those shows can be.

[Phil89]

phpBB [video]

[Andrew]

Yes, I remember that. Typical lame, uninspired swipe by Family Guy when its own brand of humour has been wretchedly bad for three seasons and counting.

[ixcuincle]

For the most part, shows with laugh tracks or studio audiences are not funny (Seinfeld is a rare exception). Laugh tracks are overused.

phpBB [video]

The CBS comedies are pretty bad so I'm pretty happy whenever they get mocked.

As for yesterday's episode, I saw parts of it. Peter always seems to be using drugs for comical effect. Lois, remember the time Peter took cocaine...

[Andrew]

For the most part, shows with laugh tracks or studio audiences are not funny (Seinfeld is a rare exception). Laugh tracks are overused.

See, I feel that's a generalisation. The hatred of shows that have a laugh track or studio audience seems to be a badge of honour online these days, people instantly hating a show or calling it not funny if it's got a laugh track/studio audience and deeming it stupid and unfunny and praising shows without one as some kind of high art and the pinnacle of comedy. That's not to say laugh tracks are a good thing, they certainly can be annoying and they do have the unfortunate reputation of being used with really bad sitcoms thus dragging down the reputation of any good or at least watchable shows with a laugh track, but there seems to be such a staunch objection to them that they somehow immediately ruin a show regardless of the quality of the jokes, the plot and the characters.

The CBS comedies are pretty bad so I'm pretty happy whenever they get mocked.

I kind of like How I Met Your Mother, not to the point of watching it religiously but I've kind of been getting into the repeats on Foxtel as of late. As I said before, Two and a Half Men is one of those shows I find enjoyable enough to watch when it's on and nothing else strikes me fancy. I'd rank the former above the latter. If the only problem with those shows is the laugh track then that's not really fair, which describes the Family Guy swipe to a tee. There's a lot about the show you could satirise and parody with that show, going after the laugh track is just shallow and petty. So yeah, I don't enjoy those swipes as much as I'm sure a lot of people do. Your Mileage May Vary, as they say on TV Tropes.

And of course that brings us to the main problem with pretty much any Family Guy swipe these days: they'd carry more weight if Family Guy itself, you know, wasn't producing wretchedly awful episodes. But it is, because apparently being funny these days is saying that other people suck. It's not edgy, it's not clever, and above all, it isn't funny. At least not the way Family Guy does it. If Groucho Marx himself were alive today and still performing, they'd probably tear him down every episode. Oh sure, in one line he could burn them back and they'd agonise over a comeback until they finally called him gay and then sat around congratulating each other on their "wit".

Oh, and the overuse of the swipes, especially at the same small group of targets, make them stale on top of everything else. At least they had the decency to let Charlie Sheen return the favour and show a little humility in the process.

The best I could say about this episode is that it was better than The Cleveland Show and only because it had a few more laughs. Aside from that...well, I've said it all before. Every so often there's an episode that is pretty funny or funny enough and that's why I keep watching, but episodes like this are a major letdown.

[Andrew]

Easily my favourite of the season. I wasn't sold on it through the first couple of minutes but after that I really enjoyed it. I've got to hand it to the writers, I thought they really put together a good episode without relying on the show's trademarks (and crutches). If only they could put the same effort and originality into the episodes. The musical clip show with cut material was fun too.

[el badman]

I like that they went a completely different direction this time around, but I can't say I enjoyed that one. Most of it felt to me like shock value attempts pushed to the extreme in a rather cheap way, and while the Brian-Stewie dynamic used to work well a few seasons ago when the show was consistently funny, I didn't really think this one was worth a 150th episode.

[Andrew]

That's pretty much how I felt about the first couple of minutes but as I said I warmed up to it. By the show's standards, it was pretty clever and creative.