Hi Scott,
Noticed you don't mention TV shows much anymore, but you used to be a fan of the Animation Domination lineup on Fox, which of course included Family Guy.
I'm curious as to what you, and others, think of the show now? I'm assuming most people think it's jumped the shark? If so, was there a particular shark-jumping moment?
Also, does it seem like over the last few years, Seth MacFarlane has gone for more gross-out humor rather than relying specifically on cut-away gags or unexpected responses? It just seems like when I watch the more recent episodes, it's almost uncomfortable to watch at times (constant vommitting, occasional limb-loss, or Meg randomly pulling one of her front teeth out). I know there's a big difference between currently being 32 years old, and being 19 when I first saw an episode of Family Guy.....but it seems like I rarely bust a gut laughing at the shows like I used to, and in fact, get a bit disgusted at them now.
Thoughts? The shark-jumping moment for me was definitely Brian eating the poppy diaper in the bank vault. The switch to HD momentarily renewed the show, but it's been incredibly hit-or-miss since then and I've been kind of letting them pile up on the DVR for a while now. The Brian & Stewie time travel episode was pretty great, but as noted otherwise it's been a parade of gross-out jokes as of late. I'm not losing sleep over missing it, I've got all the seasons on DVD and it's available on Netflix and all over syndication anyway. |
And really, the only great part of the time travel episode was the Disney segment. That was GOLD and everything else really paled in comparison.
ReplyDeleteSeth MacFarlane's movie Ted looks hysterical.
ReplyDeleteThat was the alternate universe episode. The time travel episode is when they travel back in time to the pilot episode. At least, that's the most recent time travel episode, and a great one, so I assume that's what Scott is referring to.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of Animation Domination, you really need to check out Bob's Burgers.
ReplyDeleteCleveland show is like FG, hit or miss, but American Dad tends to be of the best quality, partly b/c it has the most interesting and developed characters of any of the Seth shows.
The Simpsons is what it is.
Family Guy & Simpsons are hit or miss for me. The Cleveland Show I have not liked since day one. American Dad is Seth's superior product. And Bob's Burgers perfectly fits in the middle of it all. I read that next year FOX is going to have Saturday Night toons, a la Adult Swim. I wonder what kinds of products we should expect.
ReplyDeleteSeth's been wanting to end Family Guy for awhile, but I guess the network won't let him. American Dad is where it's at.
ReplyDeleteI really don't get the appeal of "American Dad". Every episode is the same freaking thing: Stan Learns a Lesson That is Forgotten By Next Episode (Scrubs Syndrome). Roger does something horrifying and unaccpetable because the nerdy writers like to live vicariously through assholes. Steve does something embarassing and Haley acts like a bitch. Every episode. I don't get the love at all.
ReplyDeleteI liked Family Guy when it first started. Season 1 was cool. But after that, I just didn't get the appeal, and found that most people who like Family Guy have absolutely NO sense of humor. How they could find 99% of that crap funny is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteThe first Star Wars episode was funny, because they had actual, thought-out jokes. Instead of;
Oh, you think that's annoying? Remember that time I got a job as Pam Anderson's breast implant!
*cut to a scene of Peter as Pam Anderson's left boob, and he won't stop making a high-pitch annoying sound*
The episodes with Stewie & Brian are where the show shines, because they don't pull the same crap. The time-travel episode, as well as the multi-universe episodes were good.
American Dad is just as shitty, and The Cleveland Show is an abortion clinic, sucks the life right out of things.
The Simpsons were fantastic seasons 2-9. So with it's average now, it has to be called a terrible show. I can't believe the writers would have started stooping as low as to rip off Family Guy, which was ripping them off originally.
South Park is, and forever will be the home of the smartest, and funniest animation of all time.
agree on the love for South Park. it also seems to be the only one of the "big" animation shows that is able to successfully incorporate "current" events, hypes etc. into the series.
ReplyDeleteI actually give kudos to Family Guy for the locked in the vault episode. They were trying something different. It just didn't work. Still, I see it more like an anomaly, not a shark-jumping episode.
ReplyDeleteBob's Burgers is the only Fox cartoon I can watch now. Simpsons died for me ages ago. Family Guy jumped a couple years ago because it just got reptitive....they never evolved the show like the Simpsons did to give it more juice.
ReplyDeleteAnd Ted's voice bears a definite resemblence to Peter Griffin.
ReplyDeleteThe shark was definitely jumped-over at some point, whether it was the Vault episode or some other time. Either way, the show has definitely changed in the last 3 years or so, and not necessarily for the better.
ReplyDeleteI think South Park has been terrible this year, though the Cash-for-Gold episode was decent.
ReplyDeleteI think FG is still pretty funny, though there's been a definite drop-off the last couple years. Seth needs to get his over his obsession with James Woods however, the episodes featuring him are consistently the worst of the show, IMO, and you can tell they really half-assed the last 2 Star Wars specials (they came right out and admitted it for ROTJ). I'm just waiting for Chickenfight IV.
ReplyDeleteThat's like saying "Every episode of ER is the same! Somebody gets hurt and they have to fix them!" You basically just described the premise of the show and the traits of each character. It's a cartoon comedy. The point isn't, "Will Stan remember this lesson next week?" It's "did this episode make me laugh?" If it didn't, then that's totally fine. But it's not meant to be read into more than that.
ReplyDeleteThat's also why I didn't like the South Park Cartoon Wars episodes. I'm fine with a cartoon comedy being wacky but hilarious, rather than this strange sense of entitlement.
Totally agreed - the first season of "Family Guy" was good, but it started going off the rails about halfway through the second season. I tried watching it when it came back, but only made it through one episode before deciding that it wasn't for me. Can't really comment on his other shows, as I've seen two episodes of "American Dad" and one episode of "The Cleveland Show", but the only thing that struck me was that they were all essentially the exact same show - same animation style, same voices, same gags, same "wacky" characters (the talking dog/fish/bear)... just didn't get the appeal.
ReplyDeleteI stopped watching "The Simpsons" around 2001/2002, it started doing the same type of "random action" and "yelling is funny" humor that FG was doing.
"South Park", definitely, is the king of edgy cartoons - it was a much wider variety of humor (gross-out, satire, musical, word-play), and it does them all better than the competition. It's also incredibly smart and topical. I'll agree with Adam Curry that this season hasn't been great so far, but "not great" SP is still better than pretty much anything else on television.
I'd say it's identical.
ReplyDeleteSee, as much as I don't like FG, I now want to see that episode because it's a REALLY creative premise. I'll have to check it out.
ReplyDeleteFamily Guy is really only good during the yearly sci-fi episode (the alternate universes were great, as was the time travel episode, and there was also the one where Stewie and Brian exited the space time continuum and caused the Big Bang, basically creating the universe). Other than that it seems like they're either trying to become more serious, or just don't give a shit anymore and have decided to make their show a really high handed proselytizing drama with really low brow, offensive jokes on top of it. On AV Club, one of the reviews said that the only way to really stomach FG anymore is to look at it like a comic strip: each joke and set up is only there to serve itself and if things don't carry over or the characters don't learn anything, it's because its not meant to be continual.
ReplyDeleteAmerican Dad is still awesome after all these years, and shows no signs of slowing down. Watch them all on DVD and really begin to appreciate how rarely they ever have a true misstep of an episode, vs. how many of them are really great and memorable.
I don't think Simpsons is nearly as bad now as it was 10 years or so ago. I think since the movie they've gotten to a happy medium where they can crank out average, if not great, episodes with some regularity. The last season or two, for the most part, have had more realistic storylines again, rather than all the world-traveling magical cartoony horseshit that nearly killed the show. Still, of course, they aren't as good as they were in the 90s. To be fair though, nothing else on TV ever has been, either.
As for the other ones, Cleveland is a good show to throw on when I want something to half ignore, but it's not great. Everyone tells me Bob's Burgers has hit its stride so I've considered giving it another shot, but I hated it in its early days and the characters drive me nuts, especially the one dimensional wife and the three kids that might as well be the same character because there's almost nothing different about any of them apart from their voices. Thank God Allen Gregory got cancelled, because that was one of the worst TV shows I've ever seen. Who'd have thought something with Jonah Hill could suck that hard? I actually like Napoleon Dynamite, however, which is weird because I absolutely hated the movie. I think the pacing is just right on the cartoon, because it's not too over the top whiz-bang cartoon style, where the jokes and wackiness just come flying at you. They keep it nice and evenly paced, the way that King of the Hill would have been, yet I love that from the beginning they've never made any attempt at having the show be realistic or governed by the laws of reality.
Yeah, they have been lackluster. The most recent episode, about bullies, was a home run though. Great episode. Trey is such a fantastic song-writer.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, I couldn't get into it. Not bad or anything, just the sort of thing I forgot about 5 minutes after I watched it. Thing with that show is that the episodes are usually based on whatever is in the news at the time, and nothing has really been going on lately (except for that kid in Florida, PLEASE don't do an episode about that...). They need a good political scandal to freshen things up a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe Bank Vault Episode was just plain dark. However the Family Guy episode two weeks ago where Peter starts the childrens tv show was hysterical, (saggy naggy anyone?) and can always be counted on for a few laughs. The Simpsons are kinda like pizza at this point, even when they are bad they are still pretty good. Bob's Burgers is worth watching. The kid with the bunny ears makes the show in my view.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point of them doing it anyway? "Well this side is right about this but is stupid and this side is right about this but are lame, and if you feel strongly that only one side or the other is right, you're a dumbass loser for caring about anything." That show, to me, always seems like it's trying to bully you into being nihilistic and not taking an opinion about anything, by appealing to ridicule and bashing everyone with an opinion. Yeah, great, dish it out to both sides of an issue, but if you don't have a point to make about it, don't write your episode to have some big "moral of the story" that is really just basically saying "Hate everything. Except us."
ReplyDeleteYes, my mistake. The time travel episode was actually very funny.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Barbarash had this posted on his Facebook, figured I'll post it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://newsfly.org/coming-soon-to-fox-the-flintstones/
This sounds friggin' AWFUL.
This thread reminds me of that time I tried to play darts in a balloon factory with Michael J. Fox.....
ReplyDeleteThe story goes that the bank vault episode and Brian's sudden desire to kill himself was a metaphor for Seth hating the show and wanting it to die but not being able to do so because of Fox (who at the time was threatening to keep Seth from doing his teddy bear movie unless he completed the third Star Wars parody).
ReplyDelete