I think Family Guy ran out of the funny.
This season hasn’t been anything special, and it seems the writer’s are going for shock humor more often than before. Not that I have anything against that (I’m a huge fan of South Park), but it’s starting to overlap on the brilliant/sly references and intelligent jokes of past seasons.
If I miss next week’s episode, I don’t think I’ll care.
I guess I am just easily amused- this episode was the most I’ve laughed at TV in a long, long time.
I have a dog that randomly barks at black (and only black) people. Especially kids.
I’ve had him since he was a puppy so I have no idea where it comes from.
-Joe
DiosaBellissima, you and I are both easily amused because I think this was the best of the new episodes.
The Kevin Spacey line and Jimmy Fallon bit had me rolling! Although, they did steal that montage bit from South Park and SP did it better.
American Dad was…meh. That show is hit or miss with me.
Me too.
I don’t mean to beat down the show’s critics, but the other day I fired up a few old episodes. It is just as good now as it was before; in fact, it’s completely indistinguishable. If I could find a Family Guy fan who somehow had missed one DVD of the old episodes, and stuck the four new ones broadcast thus far in with the seven episodes on the old DVD, I don’t believe they could tell the difference. I wonder if people are remembering the show’s first run as being some supernaturally orgasmic experience of funny that it really wasn’t.
There seems to be this obsession with people insisting that “it’s not as good as it used to be!” The Simpsons has been putting up with this for ten years; if it really had gotten as much worse every year as I hear people tell it, The Simpsons would by now be worse than Manimal or Small Wonder. But last night I thought The Simpsons was hilarious. Same with Family Guy.
Like your stance is any different?
I think this is mainly because with these shows, often the jokes are funnier the second or third time one watches them. I’m not sure why this is, but I know I’ve found Simpsons episodes funnier after a couple viewings.
I’ve never thought of Family Guy as much more than a cheap Simpsons and South Park wannabe (except for the first couple episodes of the first run, when everything Stewie said was funny/shocking), so this isn’t a it’s not as good as it used to beeee! whine.
That said, this was probably the first episode of Family Guy that I’ve turned off. It just wasn’t funny.
Did anyone else notice the guy singing karaoke was a lot like Kyle’s cousin Kyle from South Park? And that they also did the self-referential 80s movie montage joke from South Park? And Stewie licking his enemy’s tears was recycled from an earlier episode of Family Guy (if I’m not mistaken) which was ripped from an even earlier episode of . . . South Park?
What was up with that?
Well, one view is that when you are parodying pop culture, shows that handle similar concepts will have similar jokes. Another is that you are looking to hard.
Now, on a different subject, ten or so posts later, anyone want to tell
I completely disagree. Some of the Season One and Season Two shows are less funny than others, but by and large, they’re heads and shoulders above all of the new episodes I’ve seen so far – with the exception of the May 1st season premiere, which was pretty damn good. In fact, I just watched a couple of old episode (When You Wish Upon a Weinstein and To Live and Die in Dixie), and the difference in quality was very noticeable to me. “Quality” in this instance meaning that I personally found the older episodes to be better written and funnier. YMMV, as always.
Yeah, they’re both Jewish stereotypes. But I think Mr. Goldman predates Kyle’s cousin Kyle.
Yeah but I’m pretty sure the Family guy character was used in the Family Guy seasons before the South Park charcater. Also the Family Guy character is pretty much a ripoff of a Jerky Boys character named Sol. The tipoff being when he was talkign about his job as a pharmacist and makes comments like the hemerrhoids are like “stinky baloons” Sol on the Jerky Boys albums always made comments like that “rub sand in my assy nipples” and such.
As sick as it was, I liked the part where Peter starts playing Joe’s leg like a guitar and then grabs him by the legs and smashes the karaoke equipment.
Is it just me, or is Family Guy getting more and more surreal?
Ummm… yes, it is different, as I am asserting that the show is, in fact, as good as it’s always been. Which would be the exact opposite stance.
Yes, but it’s a trend you’ve also seemingly subscribed to, which is what I was referring to.
That’s what happens when a show becomes creatively bankrupt; they start feeling around in the dark for laughs just off the sheer oddness of what they’re doing. See the last few seasons of SNL and MadTV for examples.
Right, because there’s absolutely no tradition of surreality in comedy. Only those who have no ideas present a twisted reality in the pursuit of humor.
Does it still count as a ripoff if they’re played by the
same guy?
I think the new season’s great, almost seamless, and I’ve been rewatching the old episodes almost on a constant loop. It is what it is, and never pretends to be anything else.
I appreciated the Revenge of the Nerds Montage. I get a little sick of derivative humor and constant references to pop culture lately, but what the hell it’s only a cartoon and it’s only once a week.