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Family Guy, Vol. 2 (Season 3) Customer Reviews (4 - 6 of 32 Reviews)

Best Show Ever FULL SKULL BABY!

Family guy is the best show ever made. It is the funniest cartoon/television show. Its characters are brilliant, humorous and offensive at the same time, which of course makes for a very enjoyable show. The political references, 70's/80's tv references are hysterical as well as stewie, the diabolical 1 year. I reccomend this to anyone with a sense of humor, and someone who doesn't take offense easily.

Back with a Vengeance FULL SKULL BABY!

The Fox network recanted their decision of cancelling Seth MacFarlane's subversive animated gem, and at the 11th hour ordered another season, and just in time for Seth to cajole most of the writers for a return.
Following the 11 month hiatus, Seth brings the Griffin family back for what is often cited as the funniest of the seasons. The third season features "The Thin White Line", featuring Brian's personal struggle with a cocaine addiction, while taking many pop culture shots at breakfast cerial magnate Toucan Sam and late night mainstay David Letterman. "Brian wallows and Peter's Swallows" contains the Emmy winning song, written and performed by none other then Seth MacFarlane, recounting life in America over the years the agoraphobic elderly woman has missed. The follow-up to "The Thin white Line" finds Brain as a struggling screenwriter in Hollywood, with special guest appearences by porn legends Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy.
Fans of Family Guy must not despair, as the what was thought of as the last season of Seth's short lived endeavor will return for a fourth season, and Seth has once again cajoled most of the writers to return, and once again reassembling the veteran Hollywood voice talents to return.

Basically a Bad Show, Getting Better FULL SKULL BABY!

While FAMILY GUY bombed on Fox (and don't let anyone tell you that Fox tried to kill it; Fox renewed the show twice even though the ratings stunk almost everywhere and the reviews were scathing), it's become a huge success on DVD and cable, leading to the production of new episodes of the show and an upcoming summer run on Fox for these new episodes, where it can bomb all over again.

So what's my problem with it? Well, first of all, almost everything is derivative of other, better shows. And not just THE SIMPSONS, but PINKY AND THE BRAIN (Stewie, the little big-headed megalomaniac, is a direct ripoff of the Brain). Second, the show uses references as a substitute for humor -- which is to say that they'll often refer to some '80s TV show or commercial and expect us to laugh just because we get the reference; there's rarely any satirical point being made about the shows it's supposedly "parodying." Third, the voice acting is often quite poor -- MacFarlane improved as the series went on, but his acting is often stiff and one-note, with none of the interesting vocal inflections that, say, Dan Castellanetta brings to Homer Simpson. (To be fair, MacFarlane is better as Brian the Dog than as Peter.) Fourth, the show doesn't have much variety in its gags; the basic tropes -- sexual innuendoes, parodies, famous historical figures acting inappropriately -- are repeated from show to show. Fifth, the animation is truly terrible; the characters are inexpressive, stiff and immobile. Any episode of The Simpsons or King of the Hill has better animated "acting." And King of the Hill, often denigrated as the unfunny link in Fox's chain of animated shows, actually has character comedy, which means that it is funny even if you don't get a bunch of cheesy '80s references -- King of the Hill or the early Simpsons are genuuinely funny; Family Guy is fake funny, getting laughs by cheap means. It's about as cutting-edge as an episode of "Wayne and Shuster".

But the biggest overall problem is that the characters are just not worth following. The characters are so clearly sitcom stereotypes, and the stories are so minimal (just a clothesline on which to hang the gags) that the greatest joy of a good sitcom -- following interesting characters like a Homer Simpson or a Hank Hill or even an Eric Cartman -- is not there. All that's there is the gags, and eventually they all come to seem the same because they are based on nothing; the characters are too shallow to be humorous. (Stewie was such a one-note character that by the final season, almost every joke involves him acting *out* of character in some way -- a sure sign that a character was ill-conceived in the first place, and a sad contrast with the far superior Brain from PINKY AND THE BRAIN.) Brian is the only character with some depth to him, and the episodes focusing on him tend to be the best.

I will say that by the last season, the writers seemed to be trying to tell more coherent stories and give the characters a bit more life. This bodes well for the new episodes. But the 50 or so episodes that already exist add up to a show with poor writing, poor story structure, poor voice acting, poor animation (Peter's face is so inexpressive that his "happy" face looks about the same as his "sad" expression), and above all weak characters. In other words, a poor show. Its cult success is impressive, but then, we can all name shows that are successful without being any good.

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