I have just started to watch re-runs of “Family Guy”. It is entertaining, but not as good as the Simpsons. I also like King of the Hill better.
Looking at Family Guy, I wonder if the head writers are not smoking marijuana. The evidence to me are all the dream segments, the alternate realities (for example Peter eating potato chips in Anne Frank’s attic, or Stewie as a madman or playboy) also, they drag on dialogues and one sight gags. The Simpons or King of the Hill are not like this.
In my experience with being under the influence of pot, I think of weird and unusual things stoned and have peculiar conversations. Fits this show well.
I am not saying pot makes you smarter or a good TV writer, but is it helpful sometimes?
However they did the writing on that show, whether it was by smoking doob or drinking tequila or shooting heroin into their corneas, I wish more shows would follow that example.
Some people are just creative and have wacky senses of humor, you know? Not every weird idea comes from altered states of mind (at least, not artificially altered states).
Case in point: They Might be Giants. You don’t get much wackier than those fellows, but they’re not on anything stronger than coffee. And then there’s always the squeaky clean Weird Al Yankovich…
As for the OP’s question, I guess you’d have to ask Seth McFarlane. I’ve read a few interviews with him, but don’t recall the subject ever coming up.
It’s not evidence of drugs, just under-talented writers. They come up with somewhat funny gags but can’t find a way to integrate it into the story so they just say, “make it a fantasy sequence”. It’s bad story-telling, a form of deux ex machina.
It always annoys me when this show is compared with The Simpsons. Family Guy doesn’t even come close…
Are you trying to tell me that present day Simpson’s contain good story lines? Family Guy is a sitcom, and in this case, they placed the priority on laughs as opposed to writing a nonsensical story to “integrate” the gags (read: Simpsons). It never tried to be what it’s not and that’s why I found it to be the funniest show I’ve ever seen.
In addition, now that I think about it, Family Guy doesn’t contain nearly as many dream segments/ alternate realities as it does flashbacks or just purely random events that happen in realtime (KoolAid Man busting through wall, Tinkerbell with Peter, Peter in the Truman Show).
I have yet to see season three - I found the 1st 2 very very funny - high gag count - some very risky - and props for that… however…
my one complaint - and this may not be fair as i watched them all in succession on dvd as opposed to one a week - was the overdoing of the gag that starts… ‘Like that time when …’
Simpsons are definately falling away, but who the fuck knows what season 7 of Family Guy would have been like.
I don’t know if the writers smoke marijuana or not. Probably more than a few of them do, considering how common pot use is. I seriously doubt they’re high while they’re actually writing the scripts, though. Getting high might give you some good inspiration, but it’s damned hard to do any actual work while your lit.
It’s nothing at all like a deus ex machina. A DEM is a device used to resolve the central conflict in the plot. The gags in Family Guy have no relation at all to the plot. As to wether they’re a strength or weakness in the show, that’s a matter of opinion. They consistently made me laugh so hard I coughed up various internal organs. I think that takes quite a bit of talent. But then, I tend to appreciate absurdist humor. Are you a fan of Monty Python? If you edited together a half-hour of “fantasy segments” from Family Guy, I think the result would look much like a Monty Python episode. It’s the same sort of context-less nonsense gags that exsist merely for the laugh, and not to advance any sort of plot or character development.
Don’t know, don’t care. Just plain love the show.
I myself am what might be referred to as “delightfully twisted”, and have never had any drugs or alcohol whatsoever.
raises hand I’ve originally watched the Family Guy boxset while smoking doob. Dont often smoke, but boy did things get a hell of a lot more enjoyable while doing so.
Case in point, where Peter bangs his foot in the Willy Wonka episode and we had to watch well over 2 minutes of him going “uhh… ohhhhh” while holding his foot. On pot that stuff is GOLD baby … GOLD !
I meant that its a cheat in the same way DEM is. It’s lazy writing.
I just watched an entire FG episode (the infamous ‘jew’ episode) and my god! Almost half the jokes are like this. They’re just stand alone site-gags stuck in every 15 seconds to keep the show going. And, more importantly, they’re lame, sophemoric jokes that wouldn’t make it past the first table read on The Simpsons.
Oh well, I’ve ranted about this here before and I suppose there are more important things in life. I just react like Mugatu from Zoolander when people lump FG and The Simpsons together, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!! Blue Steel!!!”
Nonsense. A DEM is a cheat because there are rules to a drama. A resolution that comes entirely out of left field and takes the responsibility of resolving the central conflict out of the hands of the protagonists is a violation of the trust between the audience and the artist: it invalidates all the previous actions the characters have undertaken by making them meaningless: the drama was resolved in spite of their actions. Comedy, on the other hand, is about breaking rules. You can’t cheat in comedy, or rather, all comedy is cheating. It’s about the unexpected response, the defeated expectation, the unforseeable reaction. The fantasy segments in Family Guy are the quintessence of humor: you start with the “normal” setup (Meg breaks her glasses), and then take it somewhere the audience can’t possibly expect you to go with it (Luke Skywalker impales a woman’s head on his lightsaber.) Rather than a cheat, or laziness, this is fantastically creative, and the best use of the freedom of animation I’ve ever seen on American television. You don’t have to laugh at it, of course, but I think it’s a disservice to dismiss the immense effort that went into writing and animating these scenes are “lazy.”
I find some of the realllllllly long tangents in Family Guy hysterical (like the extended sequence of Peter recalling the last time he took a coupon from a giant chicken).
It’s funny if you’re not expecting it, see. Comedy comes from catching you off guard.
I would bet most of the writers on the show have at some time smoked marijuana. I would be most computer programmers have at some time smoked marijuana. I would bet most people who have been to college have at some time smoked marijuana.