Raves Continue! The absolute best animated comedy series: THE FAMILY GUY - A must buy! (1 Viewer)

[Ted Lee]

thx for posting a follow-up. iirc, you were somewhat uninspired by your initial review? hopefully this will get a few more people to watch this wonderful show.

this is indeed a great show.

 

[Joshua_Y]

www.familyguyfiles.com

 

[Jon Robertson]

Although King of the Hill will remain my favourite of all the animated shows I've ever seen, Family Guy is an absolute riot, and a gut-busting recommendation!

 

[Scott Temple]

Holy crip! He's a crapple!

Great show. Volume 2/Season 3 is a must buy.

 

[MarkHastings]

The final season has some outstanding episodes, including one where Brian becomes addicted to cocaine.

When they ask Peter who he is and he lies. First He sees a pea and says "Pea.." then he sees a tear and says "tear" and then a Gryphon flies by and he says "Gryphon" (i.e. Pea-tear Gryphon)

 

[Dean Kousoulas]

I'm really glad you love the show Ron. I was hoping you'll give the show another chance after reading your review on it. My favorite "side story" was when Peter was remembering about that fight he had with the man in the chicken suit. I was expecting maybe a 10-15 second fight, but by the 2nd minute, I was already on the floor laughing. Not to mention the cameo by Spider-Man in season 2.

In a way, this show reminds me of Sports Night. Too fast paced and clever to laugh at most of the stuff. It's a damn shame both shows are no on the air.


Dean

 

[StephenA]

I agree that this show is great. There was only one DVD set left at a local store on the release week, so I rushed down and bought it. I never regretted buying it. I got my mom, sister, and friend into it. They all find it extremely funny. I sure wish Fox didn't cancel it. Oh well, at least I have my DVD set and getting watch the reruns on Cartoon Network.

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

I have to agree with the dissenters. IMO Family Guy doesn't have humor, it has pop-culture references -- and little else. The characters are nonexistent, just a collection of sitcom stereotypes on which to hang the random jokes. Stewie is a ripoff of the Brain on the far superior Pinky and the Brain. I think the writing was often just plain bad.

For an offensive, envelope-pushing show with an unsavory hero, I'll take Duckman, which was genuinely satirical and really made its characters into distinctive personalities, not joke machines.

 

[MarkHastings]

The characters are nonexistent

Then you haven't watched much of the show. I can tell you MANY things about each character that everyone would agree is a definite personality trait:

PETER:
Booze hound, moronic, childish, perverted...

LOIS:
LOVES her husband, strong, can be childish at times, sexy and somewhat sluty...

MEG:
Lack of self esteme, yet VERY vain...

CHRIS,
Total burnout, impressed by shiny objects, doesn't get the respect he thinks he deserves...

BRIAN,
Smart, an alcoholic, worries about the family, always tries to "prove" himself...





Another reason why I love the show:
I like when they say something like "Remember the time when..." most shows would just use verbage to describe the humor, Family Guy actually illustrates and animates the humor.

This is very similar to episodes on the Simpsons where Marge will say something to Homer like "...and you did that last year! Remember?" and there will be a photo of the event she is talking about

Those pay-offs are what make me laugh out loud. Good stuff

 

[StephenT]

I haven't watched all the episodes yet, but single funniest moment so far was when Peter was making a biblical reference to Abraham killing Isaac. They showed Abraham Lincoln shooting Isaac from the Love Boat. A friend and I were watching and couldn't stop laughing for at least 5 minutes.

 

[Ruz-El]

A friend brought this over to show me, and after watching 2 episodes I stopped playing it, as I now plan to buy it. I had no idea how funny this show was.

My favorite moment: Peter triping on the side walk and holding his knee in the Willy Wonka spoof. I could not believe how long that went on, and had us falling off the couch!
(Don't want to ruin it for people who havn't watched the show.!)

 

[Tommy Ceez]

RON,
You make constant reference to how you watch almost no television programming yet you give great reviews to 'TV on DVD's' on a regular basis. I think you dont give TV programming its fair shake.
Come back to the darkside Ron, Turn on your cable box!

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

Another reason why I love the show:
I like when they say something like "Remember the time when..." most shows would just use verbage to describe the humor, Family Guy actually illustrates and animates the humor.

That's part of my problem with the show. (Heck, even Seth MacFarlane, in his interview, admits that all the cutaways could get in the way of telling the story.) I just think that 90% of those cutaways aren't very funny -- because they're not related to anything. They're not satire, they're not character comedy; they just expect me to laugh because they're referencing something that I'm familiar with (a TV show, a commercial). The Simpsons did that kind of thing occasionally, but only occasionally. Ten times an episode, though? Bo-ring.

There was one episode I thought was good -- the episode with Peter's fanatical Catholic father. That episode had an actual story, most of the jokes were organized around a theme (religion), and it made some attempt to give Peter some genuine feelings (without making him less of a reckless idiot). Most of the rest of the show, though? I still think it's just rehashes of stuff that other, less-hyped shows have done better.

 

[PaulP]

Is there hope to have the deleted scenes from the first set included in the second? Or are they lost forever?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I am also baffled by those that criticize
the pop culture references in this show when
it is those exact references that make this
show as great as it is.

So many things so cleverly spoofed that managed
to jog some forgotten memories from my noggin'.

For instance...

* Peter playing with Madame (from Wayland & Madame).
I nearly spit up my soda when I saw that bit. You
know how long I had forgotten about that puppet?

* A parody on the old Coca-Cola commercial where
at the end of a game, the kid offers the player a
sip of his coke, receiving the player's jersey in
return.

* A parody on those "Diamonds" commercials that
show two shadows exchanging diamonds.

There's even a hilarious bit in the episode where
the Griffins inherit their dead aunt's home. With
the servants at his full disposal, Stewie orders
them to battle it to the finish -- aided by that
familiar Star Trek TOS music.

There's probably dozens more of this kind of stuff
that I can't readily recall (and I still haven't
completed the entire Season I & II set yet), but
it is these pop culture references that I look
forward to watching the most.

I have been watching episodes out of this set
in no particular order for the past few weeks
and probably have a half dozen more to see. If
Season Three gets better than this, I am very
anxious to get to it.

 

[MarkHastings]

because they're not related to anything.

No problem. I guess that's not your kind of humor. I realize they're not related to anything, but that's why I like it so much. It's mindless comedy in the same way movies like Airplane or Naked Gun just do "stupid" things that have no relevance to the situation what so ever.

I like the mindless comedies, the fact that the stuff doesn't tie together makes me laugh because I'm so tired of "Predictable" comedies where you always know what's going to happen.

Family guy continuously throws out stuff that you would never expect to happen and this "catching you off guard" is the kind of stuff that kills me every time.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

The Family Guy isn't about the story. Many times there hardly is a story. That's part of the joke, really.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Is there hope to have the deleted scenes from the first set included in the second? Or are they lost forever?

They SHOULD just make an uncensored version of the first set, since (including the commentaries) they cut so much out.

 

[MarkHastings]

I hear ya Jeff. They should market it as the "Non-Rod up the Butt Edition" since someone obviously had issues with some of the commentaries on the first set. :rolleyes

 

[Malcolm R]

I still don't understand the issue with the commentaries.

OK, on broadcast television you have to at least have the appearance of having standards and enforcing them (but then again, this is FOX...home to "Temptation Island" and "Paradise Hotel" ).

But on DVD, which no one sees/hears unless they make a pro-active choice to either buy or rent and bring it personally into their homes, sit down, and watch the damn thing, what is the need for censorship? Add to this the fact that all the DVD's have disclaimers that now run on start-up anyway.

Chances are, if you weren't offended by the show itself you wouldn't be offended by anything in the commentaries.

All that is accomplished by removing/censoring the commentaries is to make fans angry and give them reasons to avoid Fox product in the future.