Now I know a lot of you watch, and maybe even enjoy, the show “Family Guy,” but let me tell you — you are wrong.
First off, please note that this piece won’t address the issues commonly bashed on by the critics of the interwebs. I have no intent to pick apart the show’s lack of a story line, or that all its jokes are derived from cut away gags, forced musical numbers or needless repetitions. And why even address the show’s gross out humor that fails to gross people out. (Ugh that’s worse than trying to address a communist cow’s cud chewing problem).
Do you see what I did there? See how I just cut away from my narrative for no reason? Do you see how I didn’t really bother to come up with anything original. Really, all I did was combine a bunch of words starting with “C” and hoped for the best. And in the “Family Guy” universe that would have worked just fine.
The frat stoner college boys, the middle school kids just getting into comedy, the senile and decrepit stuck on Fox because they no longer know how to use a remote, these people might burst into laughter at the sight of Peter fighting a giant chicken or clutching his knee and saying, “Ow,” a thousand times, or another masturbatory music number. But the rest of the populace should know better. The only thing grosser than this failing on the part of the public is a VHS copy of Girls Gone Wild: Gangrenous Goiters edition.
Really, I don’t even have a problem with the other shows on Fox. I love American Dad, another product of MacFarlane’s, and even liked Family Guy when it first began and in its first rebirth. The problem is the writers have become engorged with a sense of their own ego.
I digress, but it’s so hard to throw new hate at Family Guy at this point. Not because the show doesn’t lend itself to hate. I hate musicals. I hate cut-away gags even more than I hate the show’s attempts to be offensive. Sure, it’s offensive to everyone outside of the “Family Guy” demographic, but who the hell watches Family Guy outside of the undergraduate male demographic other than a couple of bored girlfriends? People who watch the show are thusly desensitized to all that “Family Guy” writing staff has to offer.
That means rape jokes, incest jokes, murder jokes, murder-incest-rape jokes and fecal jokes, don’t even shock or challenge the audience. Instead, the audience for Family Guy takes all these “offensive” jokes and tosses them continuously at the audience like a dog owner tosses pig ears.
That’s right. Consistent viewers of “Family Guy” are like junkyard dogs who don’t know any better. And it’s even worse than polar bears without nachos on Cinco de Mayo.
The point though is that all the hate’s been pretty thoroughly exhausted. Type in “Family Guy sucks” or “criticisms of Family Guy” or any thing along those lines and you’ll find more sites on the subject than pimples on a ‘roid-popping, ball-playing midget.
The question is why does the show continue to boast strong ratings. Why does it out-perform superior shows such as The Simpsons or American Dad for weeks at a time on Hulu? I want answers worse than a high school honors student balancing a crack addiction while taking the SAT in Chinese.
Is that bothering you yet? Because it’s driving me insane.
Consider the most recent episode, of which I only made it through the first commercial break. There are eight interchangeable jokes or cut-away gags, such as a British person capturing a rogue butterfly or a pair of oddly place immigrants speaking in broken English about phone cards. There’s also an extended number where Peter skates around in a Tron-like costume and then throws his helmet on the ground before wandering off like a child. Does this sound funny to you?
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
For your pleasure, I’ve constructed a list of things probably funnier and better to do than watching Family Guy for a half an hour:
Watching linoleum curl — the subtle nature of the curling floor will leave in you in rows of laughter for days, and when it starts to crackle you’ll be sure to cackle. Zing!
Enlightenment, because you’ll be able to chuckle softly at the mere mortals beneath you.
Watching a Lars von Trier film because if you’re going to see rape, murder and fecal matter you might as well see it in full detail.
The episodes rely on the same shock that’s no longer shocking. It brings about the one time character that should have been left in the past long ago. Family Guy is a show that’s not even trying anymore, and for this reason I feel it would be most appropriate if it took all dead on arrival gags, flimsy stories and characters and awful animation and just stopped.
I know I don’t have to watch it. I don’t watch it, but I cringe when I see a great crime being committed against my fellow man. I must intervene. Family Guy please stop. Just try to make a good show instead of resting on your comedic haunches, like a fat guy running up stairs at the Eiffel Tower.
