Family Guy/American Dad

[Perfxion]

I will do a one/two combo for a thread.

That was one of the better songs on Family Guy in a LONG TIME. Way better than the show before it. God that was crap.

 

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

Pretty good ep of FG tonight.


Yeah, that song was really good.

 

[Jingus]

I only watch Family Guy, oh, maybe once or twice a month. This is now what passes as an unusually good episode? I'm 100% for the legalization of weed, but this preachy shit made me wanna go out and beat up every stoner I see. Granted, it's not as insanely terrible as the Surfin' Bird episode or that time they decided to play the entire Conway Twitty song for no apparent reason. But still, the biggest laugh I had during this episode is when they played one of those anti-pot public service messages during the commercials.

 

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

I.... FUCKING..... HATE.... THAT DAMN CONWAY TWITTY SONG.


FUCK. Man. I can't put into words how much I hated that gag.



That Surfin' Bird ep was funny as hell just for the song.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

The "You disappoint me" dog was the best bit for sure.

The ST:TNG episode a few weeks ago was pretty great.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

most of the songs they do are total bombs, this one was passable.

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

I still haven't been as annoyed by a bit as I was with Shaboopie (or however you spell it), several seasons ago. Jesus that was horrid.

I agree Surfin' Bird is probably the worst episode of Family Guy in a LONG time. The Conway Twitty bit can be funny, except for the time about a month ago when they played the entire song.

 

[Nightwing]

The Star Trek episode was okay as long as they were with the Star Trek cast. Once they moved back to "Heavy-Handed Politics 101", it got horrible. Anyone remember one of the earliest Family Guy episodes where God gets ticked at Peter claiming to be God? Apparently Seth MacFarlane didn't.

I still like American Dad, though. I think he actually tries on that show, because he knows he can throw in random jokes on Family Guy to fill 4/5th of the episode.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

American Dad is consistently my favourite show of the Sunday line-up. I laugh at Simpsons and FG, but AD is the best overall. I've found the past few episodes of KotH very, very boring.

 

[samoarowe]

American Dad has been outperforming Family Guy in the quality department since 2006. Family Guy frustrates me now. Before it was canceled, it was easily one of my favorite shows and I missed it during cancellation. But now, these new episodes and the dumb crowd I see it attracting amongst my retail coworkers (who would have never watched it before 2005, mind you) I'm frankly embarassed to admit that I was/am a fan.

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

I said American Dad was better than Family Guy when it first came out, glad to see people agree these days.

 

[Gary]

"American Dad" is what happens when Seth discovers the importance of character development and that not preaching to the choir is a good thing. Plus, "Family Guy" never pulled off a a Joy Division, Warriors, or Depeche Mode reference in one episode.

So yeah, I love "American Dad."

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

"American Dad" is what happens when Seth discovers the importance of character development and that not preaching to the choir is a good thing. Plus, "Family Guy" never pulled off a a Joy Division, Warriors, or Depeche Mode reference in one episode.

So yeah, I love "American Dad."

I've mentioned this before, but DVD commentary has convinced me that outside of providing voices and character designs (and sharing an office with the AD writers), Seth has very little to do with the scripting of this show. It's all about Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman.

 

[griffinmills]

I think the Surfin' Bird episode is actually the one that got me back into the series. Up to the Jesus part it just had me laughing so hard and I love the straight man humor with Brian at the table and Peter reading the newspaper. Shit like that cracks me up and Stewie jumping in yelling, "Brian NO!" was perfect. Taking a joke perfectly too far is an amazingly difficult and touchy thing, not to mention the "too far" goal posts move with each person so I could see why folks hate on the episode.

Shipoopi, in my opinion, stomped all over the heavy handed weed song. Setting aside the fact that Shipoopi is an actual f'n song from The Music Man, it goes so far over the top while staying constrained to things you could possibly see in a half time stadium show. Sometimes I think writers actually need to be constrained a bit in order for them to be better and more creative so Shipoopi in the football stadium rocks it for me vs. Bag o' Weed. That said, Bag o' Weed is hardly the crapocalypse either. Better than Sit Down, Shut Up amiright?

American Dad is clearly where the A team is writing, to me. Once they found what they wanted to do with Roger the show fires on all cylinders. I think around the time Patrick Stewart uttered the words, "I seem to have left all my electrolytes in your daughter..." was when I was caught hook, line and sinker. Not too mention amazing digressions like the golden poop stuff.

 

[Red Baron]

I used to love Family Guy a lot, but when South Park ripped into them about their writing styles, the show became unfunny. It's okay time to time, but watching it is a chore.

 

[griffinmills]

I used to love Family Guy a lot, but when South Park ripped into them about their writing styles, the show became unfunny. It's okay time to time, but watching it is a chore.

Got to agree, I think the South Park parody scenes would be hilarious in actual Family Guy episodes. It's not like Seth McFarlane isn't fully aware and self deprecating of their own "writing" style, running and hiding from criticism. Check out the Robot Chicken sketch that opens season 4!

Adult Swim Video

South Park is hardly bulletproof anymore though, giant live action guinea pigs? I think Trey and Matt do a great job when they can actually tie whatever topical subject they want to tackle into the kids perspective or things kids actually go through. That's why episodes like the Okama Gamesphere (sp?) are so good.

American Dad is on track to be as good as South Park but will probably be handicapped by being off cable.

 

[ericmm]

Regarding Family Guy, you're either a fan of Seth McFarlene or your not, it's completely obvious that the show has become a quasi-wank session for him each week where he says what he likes and makes whatever jokes he thinks will be funny. A three minute cut away to Conway Twitty? Fine. A crudely inserted reference to the freakout on the set of the Terminator movie? Whatever. Tirades about drugs and God? Many, many singing numbers? Great.

If any of this is not your cup of tea, then Family Guy is very pointedly not for you anymore.

 

[Nightwing]

They were unfunny ever since they came back from the cancellation. The problem is that their jokes have really shifted away from the characters and more towards the cutaway jokes, which were much rarer in earlier seasons. If you look back, original Family Guy humor is a lot different than it is now. The three biggest things that irritate me that they do:

- Referencing Old Stuff is Funny! Anyone ever seen the "Comedy" episode of Metallocalypse? There's a comedian who gets laughs by mentioning 1980's cartoons. "Remember Snorks? Snorks! I'll give you a Snork!" That's what Family Guy is now. It thinks that, by simply mentioning something old, it's funny. Sometimes it is (The GI Joe parody), most of the time it isn't.

The Longer it is, the Funnier it Must Be! When did every Family Guy joke pull out to 3 minutes each? I think one of the reasons I liked Star Trek part of the recent episode was because there were actually a lot of different jokes being thrown out in relatively quick succession. You can only stretch a joke out uncomfortably for 58 seconds a few times before it becomes really, really irritating.

Preachy Bullshit! For some reason, American Dad is just a whole lot better at being preachy without being really, really irritating. Using the Star Trek episode as a reference (Since it's the only episode I've watched recently), the whole Meg plot was so heavy-handed it had it's own gravity well, and it came off as stupid and illogical unto itself. I don't mind preachiness sometimes (South Park and American Dad do it well, and old Simpsons episodes knew how to do it), but Family Guy just has no fucking clue how to be interesting with it.

 

[griffinmills]

Regarding Family Guy, you're either a fan of Seth McFarlene or your not, it's completely obvious that the show has become a quasi-wank session for him each week where he says what he likes and makes whatever jokes he thinks will be funny. A three minute cut away to Conway Twitty? Fine. A crudely inserted reference to the freakout on the set of the Terminator movie? Whatever. Tirades about drugs and God? Many, many singing numbers? Great.

If any of this is not your cup of tea, then Family Guy is very pointedly not for you anymore.

I'm not completely sold but it sounds likely. Actually DrVenkman I think may have hit the truth, that it's really pretty much in other hands ever since it returned as Seth may be more invested in American Dad and/or other projects. Could be a combination of these two POVs, that these two new guys are sycophants to Seth.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

Did you mean to say "more invested in Family Guy"? I was trying to say I think Seth is mostly hands-off with AD.

 

[Jingus]

My issue with Family Guy is that there are parts of it, occasionally, which have me damn near rolling on the floor with laughter. Those moments are good enough that I watch the show every week, hoping (mostly in vain) to see more of them. Because unfortunately those few great parts are counterbalanced by long, long stretches where they don't even seem to be doing any jokes. It's like, we all know how good the show CAN be, but McFarlane is just too lazy or self-indulgent to deliver on his own potential most of the time.

Just repeating the opening of Back to the Future shot-for-shot except with Peter replacing Marty... why is that even allegedly supposed to be funny? That's not dissimilar to what those Date/Epic/Disaster Movie clowns do, recycling bits without adding any extra layer of humor on top of it. Same thing with the song numbers; why is it funny to hear some random 80s pop song, done exactly the same way as the original, except sung by one of Seth's many voices? If you're simply repeating material and not changing it in any way, that's not even a joke. And let's not even go into the sheer pompous absurdity of demanding that your audience sit through an entire Conway Twitty song.

 

[Jebus]

I liked the Conway Twitty song bit. But, hey, I also enjoyed "Surfin' Bird" until the awful Jesus plotline kicked in so...
I guess I like when McFarlane toys with his audience.

 

[Gary]

There's a difference between toying with your audience and being lazy. "Family Guy" is the latter these days.

 

[Slayer]

Seth knows that he can write five minutes of plot with fifteen minutes of (mostly bad) cutaway jokes and most people will still watch. I largely got tired of it a couple years ago though, and only refer to the original FG run as FG while everything post-resurrection I call Neo-Family Guy.

American Dad has been far superior in its concurrent run with FG, though I tend to worry every now and then when an FG-ish bit works its way into AD, such as the episode with the squirrels acting scenes from Gilbert Grape

 

[Jebus]

There's a difference between toying with your audience and being lazy. "Family Guy" is the latter these days.

I'd say FG is both actually.
I enjoy when he toys with the audience cause it's more entertaining than the bad storylines.
"Surfin' Bird" episode is a perfect example of that. The whole episode shoulda been the song, IMO.

It can be frustrating but I still watch Family Guy cause, while the story plots have gone to shit, there's usually at least a couple of random jokes that will make me laugh my ass off.

 

[Red Baron]

Not to bash with Family Guy anymore, but I think it was Trey Parker said it best in the commentary that most of the writers at Family Guy said they were gag writers.

 

[griffinmills]

Did you mean to say "more invested in Family Guy"? I was trying to say I think Seth is mostly hands-off with AD.

Ah, I reread your post, oops. I guess I was fixated on Gary Floyd mentioning FG and relegated his last line about AD to an afterthought / compliment but now I see how the flow of conversation was meant to go. Since I was giving a lot of weight, in my mind, to the credit of the commentary tracks I guess I have to retract the thought that Seth is more in to AD and making it better to the detriment of FG.

I have to say I'm in the same boat as folks like Jeebus that watch for the "good funnies" per episode and put up with a lot just for the laughs.

As for Trey and Matt, I love 'em but like I said before, hardly bulletproof. They are one of the few comedy writers that can dig themselves out of the pre-built hole they end up with when they go for fart, poop, queef or whatever humor. Usually you can only get away with that crap by actually ridiculing the humor of those that use them as a crutch, for example, "Fartin' Gary" sketch on Mr. Show is more about bashing fart humor than pushing the fart jokes themselves. Whereas Matt and Trey manage to do that AND get an amazing, so-bad-it-goes-around-again-to-good joke like the Road Warrior queef in.

Interesting comment on the "gag writer" line from them. "Brevity is the soul of wit." Neh? Not sure where they were going with the line actually, since gag writers are extremely common from TV to newspaper cartoonists or shows that need a lot of fast quippy humor like late night interview shows or shows like the Daily Show. Would be enteresting to see Seth pen some longer stuff (no the Star Wars episode doesn't come close to counting) and see if he's got it in him still w/r/t stamina as far as writing goes. Hell, Seth also used to write for Dexter's Lab and Johnny Bravo and shit so he's got a bit of experience under his belt, maybe he can do it, maybe not. Enough speculating from me!

 

[Star Ocean 2]

Seth said on the Adam Carolla Podcast that he's planning a real Family Guy movie.

 

[The Metal Maniac]

Personally, I think the most annoying thing about FG these days is the uber-long jokes, mostly because you can see them coming a mile away.

I mean, back when the show started and the humour was new, fine. Now Peter pulls out some epikack and you instantly know that the next 5 minutes is going to be people throwing up. Stretching a joke out for comical effect doesn't work when you know that it's going to happen before the joke even starts.

Also, talking about the references; as people pointed out, just taking the exact scene from a movie and sticking Peter in there doesn't actually make it funny. But I find it interesting to compare FG's reference jokes to the ones you get on the Simpsons - I've laughed my head off at jokes on the Simpsons that were referring to something I never heard of, because they make the JOKE funny. I don't even understand how high school kids watch the show these days, considering it's 65% 80's tv references.

 

[Mik]

Roided out Stewie was the best. "What's going on B-minus? What's the haps?"

Also, "Lady and the Tramp (and Michael Vick)". Awesome.

I still love Family Guy because it always has one or two jokes per episode that leave me rolling and that's worth sitting through the crap.