Hey guys, remember when Family Guy used to be funny?



  • So lately we've been watching the new episodes of Family Guy.  I figured "hey, I like all of those old episodes my wife snagged from the P2P system at school... the new ones should be just as hilarious!"  Wrong.  I'm not sure if it's the writer's strike or just the general direction they are taking, but... wow.

    The only thing that they can come up with anymore is either recycling gags from previous episodes or shockingly graphic violence.  I mean, seriously, in the first minute of the new episode that aired last night they have a graphic depiction of Peter putting a gun in his mouth, pulling the trigger, with his brains splattering on the wall behind him, and then slumping on the table with a gaping hole in his skull.  That sort of shock violence has been in every one of the handful of new episodes I've seen, and I think I'm done with them.

    Later that same night I decided to watch one of the old ones when it came on, where Chris realizes he's fat but can't change, Peter gets liposuction, and Stewie turns obese.  It was a riot.



  • I found the same thing with the futurama movie. I believe the culprit is the inability to generate consistent characters over a long period of time, personal life affects (or effects?) their development which is very difficult when they are supposed to be static characters. Expecting something to be just as good as it once was is generally not suggested, for reference use any Hollywood movie that has a sequel and compare the sequel to the original, although sometimes the second is decent or better than the first, the third is usually the death.



  • @Lingerance said:

    or reference use any Hollywood movie that has a sequel and compare the sequel to the original, although sometimes the second is decent or better than the first, the third is usually the death.

    I've never seen the SQL to any movie.  Has anyone else gotten the SQL to a movie?  I bet the comments would be awesome. 

    For instance,

    @The Matrix: Reloaded said:

    -- F*CKING Keanu Reeves can't act, but it doesn't matter because we're going to blow things up

    SELECT * FROM explosions exp, actors act
    WHERE act.talent < "stoic"
    AND exp.size > "level three city blocks"

    @Eyes Wide Shut said:

    -- Nicole Kidman!!!!111  I can't wait to see the results of this query

    SELECT MAX(skin) FROM actresses act where act.breast_size > 'B'




  • I haven't seen any new episodes of the show recently, so I can neither agree nor disagree with you. But there is a name for what you're describing: Jumping the shark. The fact that it has a name suggests it happens a lot.



  • <two_cents> 

    Yeah and no, i think what they do these days is have different writers for different episodes so some are funnier than others.  I do agree though some of the new ones are a bit lame but there are still the odd hilarious one.  I recently re watched the first season and found it to not be as good as i remember.  I think the simpsons are doing the different writers on different episodes thing, even though it's totally jumped the shark occasionally a good one will come up that has a very different style to the usual shitty ones(ie. that 24 piss take earlier this season).  But hell Family Guy is still worth a download, it's still better than TV.  As for the shock violence thing it's not the greatest comic device ever used but it's a cartoon so it's not like it's offensive or anything, just a touch unneccessary perhaps.  If you're not up for it though i wouldn't recommend that episode where stewie beats the crap out of brian, it's a really long + violent scene.

    </two_cents> 



  • @element[0] said:

    If you're not up for it though i wouldn't recommend that episode where stewie beats the crap out of brian, it's a really long + violent scene.

    I watched that episode as well, I didn't like that scene at all. I have Seasons 1-5 of Family Guy on DVD (I'm not sure if the seasons of Family Guy we get in the UK are different to the US), and after Season 3 (i.e., after they came back after being cancelled) it started getting a bit crap. I downloaded Season 6 just to see what it was like a couple of months ago, I got half way through the series and I've given up watching. There are a few good ideas but too much of it is just deliberately trying to be 'shocking', rehashing old jokes, and just poor quality in general. The last episode I watched was the one where Meg falls in love with Brian and turns into some kind of psycho about it... I actually found it quite creepy, and apart from one or two jokes not funny either.

    Incidentally, I think "Bender's Big Score" isn't quite as good as a standard Futurama episode, but I think that's mainly because of the difference in formats i.e. doing a 1.5 hour story rather than a 20 minute one. It was still really funny, much more so than Family Guy has been lately.

    Aaaanyway, I'll stop rambling...

     



  • You mean that Kool-Aid Man throwaway gag in the first episode?  Yeah, that was kind of funny.  Too bad the show's never been funny a single time since then.



  • @VGR said:

    I haven't seen any new episodes of the show recently, so I can neither agree nor disagree with you. But there is a name for what you're describing: Jumping the shark. The fact that it has a name suggests it happens a lot.

    [url=http://www.jumptheshark.com]Jumped the Shark[/url] has some background on the origin of the term as well as massive viewer-driven lists of every show you've ever heard of.



  • @GalacticCowboy said:

    @VGR said:

    I haven't seen any new episodes of the show recently, so I can neither agree nor disagree with you. But there is a name for what you're describing: Jumping the shark. The fact that it has a name suggests it happens a lot.

    [url=http://www.jumptheshark.com]Jumped the Shark[/url] has some background on the origin of the term as well as massive viewer-driven lists of every show you've ever heard of.

    It still amazes me the number of people who still think The Simpsons 'never jumped', even though it's been crap for the last 7 years.

    That said, I still download and watch them to fill in 20 minutes, although I don't bother keeping them anymore.

    I love Family Guy, but currently BSG and South Park are the kings in this house with many, many hours of re-viewing thus far.

    PS. Ted McGinley rocks. Jefferson was certainly as good a foil for Al Bundy as Steve Rhodes was :)



  • @Quinnum said:

    It still amazes me the number of people who still think The Simpsons 'never jumped', even though it's been crap for the last 7 years.

    Yeah, it takes some serious denial to keep believing that The Simpsons is still a great show.  One show that has somehow managed to remain funny after all of these years is King of the Hill.   It's probably because it is more of a low-key show with a smaller audience, so there isn't as much pressure to be "edgy" or any of that bullcrap that ruins shows.



  • @djork said:

    @Quinnum said:

    It still amazes me the number of people who still think The Simpsons 'never jumped', even though it's been crap for the last 7 years.

    Yeah, it takes some serious denial to keep believing that The Simpsons is still a great show.

    I don't remember it ever being a great show. I'd describe it as "mildly amusing and becoming increasingly more derivative as time passes, with a few (early) episodes that stand out as being markedly better than the rest". It has 16 different writers and you can clearly tell that some are just better than the others.

    Much like the ubiquitous crate in an FPS, you can precisely mark the point at which the writers run out of ideas by the appearance of old footage from previous episodes.


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