Saturday, August 30, 2008

Family guy

So I'm watching Family Guy season five. It's often funny, but some things puzzle me:

1: Who wrote the lyrics to the theme song? He needs grammar lessons. "Lucky there's a family guy"?

2: When they fall down, how come they always lie still like a statue?

3: How come they are so gruesomely nasty to real people? To point out that Kathleen Turner has lost her looks is not funny, it's just unkind.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

1: Who wrote the lyrics to the theme song? He needs grammar lessons. "Lucky there's a family guy"?

I'm not sure I see a problem here...

2: When they fall down, how come they always lie still like a statue?

It's funnier that way. And it's done with traditional animation which is often deliberately crude, a contrast to the too-slick Simpsons or Futurama, which use computers.

3: How come they are so gruesomely nasty to real people? To point out that Kathleen Turner has lost her looks is not funny, it's just unkind.

It is funny. You either get it or you don't. As Louis Armstrong said about Jazz, "Man, if you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know." I bet you like to pretend you're a saint who's never said anything unkind about anyone.

Anonymous said...

I have the older episodes practically memorized, but I don't like it as much since it got back on the air. Before it was all fun and random silliness. Now it seems like they're trying to make every joke "mean something". And the constant references to celebrities I don't know or care about tends to get on my nerves. It still has its moments like you said, but you have to wait through a lot of irritating moments to get the funny parts.

Alex said...

I wish I had them all memorized, I love how Peter and Brian escape the Lynch mob by saying there was in interracial same sex marriage going on in town.

I liked the episodes where Brian and Lois almost have an affair.

Still, there is a nasty streak which is funny because it's embarrasingly like some people I've known, and leaves me feeling comparatively saintly.

"What shall we do tonight Brain?" Oh, that's another show. "Narf!".

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"Luckily there's a family guy" would be correct. Or "It's lucky there's a family guy". But not "lucky there's a family guy".
Nitpicking, sure.

I don't pretend to be a saint, I just think the show would be much better if they stopped referring to real people (like Alex say, I don't know or care about half of them), and just kept it fictional.

Anonymous said...

I have the older episodes practically memorized, but I don't like it as much since it got back on the air.

I know what you mean. It isn't the same. The jokes are more hit-and-miss now.

Alex said...

So what's your take on "American Dad"?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I've watched the first season, and it was not bad. Seemed like they did all the stuff they would have been doing with FG if it had not been cancelled.

Anonymous said...

So what's your take on "American Dad"?

I hated it at first, but have come to enjoy it. Mainly because of Roger the Alien, who reminds me of ALF - or ALF as he might have been as an alcoholic homosexual.

I hate Klaus, the fish. Not funny at all.

Eolake:
Seemed like they did all the stuff they would have been doing with FG if it had not been cancelled.

That's partly why I disliked it initially.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Brian well spotted...
"I bet you like to pretend you're a saint who's never said anything unkind about anyone."

That's me all right! Amen, hell-bound brothers.

Same thing we do every night, Alex: TRY TO CONVERT THE WORLD!
Have you brought the brimstome? (sigh) No, Alex, not the GRIM stone. Return that slab to the cemetary... (why me?)