Family Guy

I'm saying that The Simpsons won the week of Fox Toons, but it was close. That was just plain great.

The ending to Meg in Russia was the best capper ever, and best way I have EVER seen a show end the need for a season ending cliffhanger in under 60 seconds. Beautifully handled.

I have to say parodying "Belle" from "Beauty And The Beast" seems counterproductive. Belle HATED the town she lived in, upbeat melody to the contrary. All of the things she's saying in the song are complaints. Later on in the movie after the townspeople go nuts, I see what she means, but as catchy a song as "Belle" IS, it doesn't make the viewer actually LIKE the character when they first meet her. Yes, Gaston is a pig and it's fun to see her punk him. But the townspeople don't just hate Belle's intelligence and independence. It's her utter refusal to interact with and be neighborly to the community. The show using that specific number to show Meg loving her secretly crappy life isn't right.

Ironically the song "Gaston" would have worked for this. That song is everybody listing Gaston's most obnoxious faults without ever being smart enough to realize every single one of them is the reason he actually sucks. That would have totally worked for Meg praising Russia, although I think the framing visuals there would have been tougher to pull off and the context nearly impossible. It's simply NOT the introduction "Belle" is. I think they should have simply avoided that movie homage here altogether.

I did not remotely believe how Chris got Shepard out of that fix but it was about the best they could do. Actually the best they probably could have done is to have kept that whole thing secret and to have had it crumble for an entirely different reason. American Dad would have (and actually once did) the second thing.

Maybe it was simply because the rest of the episode was making me chuckle, and when that happens a moderately funny thing is apt to push you over the edge, but when Chris screams at the actors on camera to get that cigarette out of the shot because kids are watching this, I freaking lost it. I probably missed about 2 minutes of the episode past that, I was laughing so hysterically. Him telling them later to cover up the baby was also funny, but it's actually the same joke, so I made it through that one okay.

We've come a long way from Peter losing his job on the school board for giving Chris access to his old nudie mag collection, haven't we?

The Steve Martin joke is great. The guy IS universally beloved and the show is pretty much talking about how annoying his career currently is. A guy that funny and talented should be doing funny and amazing things. It would be one thing if he were like Bill Murray and simply transitioned to dramas, but his career choices are just plain weird and frustrating instead. Family Guy does a LOT of unfair slams on celebrities. To take on a sacred cow like Martin is not just admirable, but I appreciate they actually complained about the correct things in a very precise manner. Hopefully the days of Minnie Driver's head being too big to be in the shot are done. A lot of celebrity behavior DOES suck. Family Guy exploring it instead of female celebrities aging is about damn time.

Any REAL complaints? It WAS funny, but I honestly think this episode probably shouldn't have been attempted on network TV at all. If Fox had allowed them to get away with what they did in Brian Does Hollywood, it would have been okay, but I was very aware of the censor constraints the show is now under on broadcast. It speaks well of the show that it's still a great episode. It probably should not have been.

Yes, America, our healthcare system IS worse than Russia's. That bit is actually true. Granted we have better doctors and treatments than they do (their Covid vaccine is a joke), but nobody is gonna go broke from medical bills in Russia. Which should sort of blow the 14 year olds who watch the show's minds. They aren't actually making that part up.

Yeah, that was great. And with the Meg ending it actually was a rare season finale for the show that FELT like an actual season finale. Neat trick that. ****1 removed link

I've always liked the friendship between Meg and Bruce and thought the episode was kind of sweet.

Lois being so excited to be a hot grandma was pretty funny.

I loved Dr. Hartman's bits about contractions too.

Papa John's IS pretty gross.

Stewie made the cutaway so he could see the play.

The hole in the wall was already there.

Pretty good episode. 3 1/2 stars.

So wait, we don't like Jeff Garlin now? Since when?

The Mickeycopter! See, Disney? Corporate synergy!

Delaware can do anything it wants now. Thanks, Sleepy Joe.

I guess it was fun to pair Brian with Joe instead of either Stewie or Lois, but the problem is Joe is too stupid to call Brian on his crap. And this was a pretty bad episode for that, even for Brian. The only time I enjoy Brian is when Stewie or Lois are taking him down a few pegs.

Of course Peter only got the job because he was mentally disabled. Here's the thing though. He is. Whether he denies it or not. It's already been established.

Can you imagine the hell it would be for whoever is In Memoriam after Betty White? I do not envy that person for that. Also I don't envy that person because they're dead.

Funny episode. Winner of Fox Toons was a tie between The Simpsons and Bob's Burgers. 4 stars.

If they had actually gotten Tom Selleck I would have been impressed. With Selleck. But Selleck always struck me as a guy who publicly acts warm and approachable, but doesn't have a sense of humor about themselves deep down. I think Selleck could have voiced himself with few problems. Really, what actor would turn down the line "How are you 78?"

Stewie's stuff with Bruce was super funny. When Chris did the voice-over about the mass arrest of the flea market salesmen I was rolling when he said his brother and his dog left him in their car. Poor Chris.

Jet Skis SEEM fun. Is it possible they all have these tragic backstories?

I think the episode was written for Selleck and they were surprised he turned it down. They could do the biting end card since he did, but before that all of the jokes were good natured. Tom Selleck apparently has less of a sense of humor about himself than Rush Limbaugh did. Doesn't that just make you want to throw up in your mouth a little?

I liked it. 4 stars.

Love the revelation that it was Joe's plan all along. Although it ending the way it did on a legless Cleveland was too cruel.

Henry Winkler has come a long way from refusing to voice the Fonz on the show.

The shower stuff was too gross by the end. But Brian as a puppy was still adorable.

Yeah, Stewie, your penis compliments shall not returned. It's weird you think they should be. Were I Brian, that would have brought up a tragic unforeseen case of infant drowning. That crap is not just for Whitney Houston anymore.

I like that the design of the jet-pack lawyer was a dead-ringer for Richard Kind in real life.

I'd called James Hong a national treasure, but he's not an American. He's more of a global treasure.

I liked it fine. Family Guy won Fox Toons. 4 stars.

The Shining ending made no sense. Of course the ending to the actual movie The Shining makes no sense either.

I love episodes where Lois is genuinely pissed at Peter for his crap. As for the idea of her forgiving him because she realized she was the Alpha and she didn't actually need her, while I actually imagine that's what the narrative needed to conclude satisfactorily, even if Lois realized that, it didn't means she HAD to forgive him. Didn't care for that.

Seth MacFarlane has been struggling with his voices on American Dad. Stan and Roger take a LOT out of him these days. Stewie and Brian are clearly easy lifts for him, and he seems to be having fun with Stewie's entire run about Guy.

I feel like Joe's popcorn thing is on-brand for the character, but he's done stupid observations like that so often now they've stopped being funny and special, and more of an expectation of the character. The past few years were fun with the writers figuring out new comedy angles for him. The well has clearly run dry there and they're repeating if not the exact same ideas, than the same tropes behind the ideas.

It was pretty good though. Simpsons won Fox Toons tonight. 3 1/2 stars.

One of my absolute favorite things about Family Guy is the shots it takes at Massachusetts. Speaking as someone who lives here, every time I hear a gadfly pundit bemoaning tea-sipping, coastal liberal elites I know there exists a pundit who has never met anybody from the state. When Peter said in an earlier episode he doesn't understand how a town with so many amazing colleges can produce nothing but dopes, that's the Massachusetts I recognize. Massholes are not people into Harvard's National Lampoon. They are into Adam Sandler. And Family Guy is one of the only projects I've ever seen that insults us in the right way. We are not a bunch of effete coastal elites. We are a state of nothin' but dopes.

Stewie apologizing to the Unabomber for his inclusion in the Harvard gag will strike people as too far. But you know what? I know what he was talking about. And maybe the joke's truth is what makes it so offensive to the people who will cry foul over it. I expect Trey Parker and Matt Stone to blubber about it, which is another point in its favor. A Hit Dog Hollers.

The Most Boston Show And Tell Ever is another thing that says the writers of this show understand that state in a way no other writers do.

Chris seems a bit too self-aware here for comfort. Smashing the cupcakes at the beginning strikes me as purely mean, and him questioning Meg's "business model" over the smash fetish video idea, as well as declaring the exotic pets a sign of his soul's decline means Chris is crossing over from lovably clueless, and turning into "The sociopathic turd who knows exactly what he's doing." This has been my entire problem with Peter Griffin over the years, so I don't like seeing that facet transferred to Chris now too. In fairness, Meg has improved as a character as much as Chris has devolved.

I'm not like Brian in now wanting to taste human eggs, but the joke is a sly observation in the way weird ideas can get into and told hold of your brain. It's really irksome.

Boston Stewie beating up the family for being Jets fans? Painful joke, but accurate. For most Massholes being a "sports town" is a source of pride. For me, because of stuff like that, it's a source of embarrassment. Is it just me or should sports be fun and enjoyable? None of my neighbors believe so, which is probably why I shy away from sports altogether. I don't like Game Of Throne's bloodthirstiness and cruelty. I certainly don't love the same thing about Pats fans. Ever read Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan's "Faithful"? It's a good documentation of the Red Sox's first World Series win in nearly a century. But the fact that King and O'Nan's entire lives, moods, and happiness seem to revolve around how well or poorly the Sox were doing that year strikes me as insane. And King is from Maine! Imagine how bad it is for Massholes. It's something about my state I don't understand and truthfully it's not something I ever WANT to understand.

I was laughing so hard at that episode. For its accuracy and everything I recognized about the people in my area. I feel like the show understands the area, which I guess is a kind of privilege I have that I was able to enjoy that and not be offended instead. I can afford to take a drubbing from Family Guy. The people on the end of the cheap stereotypes in the racist jokes from previous seasons probably understandably have a different reaction to being so personally insulted (and I don't blame them for that.) I'm living a pretty sweet life if I can find the humor in it instead of feeling like the show is punching down at me.

Family Guy won Fox Toons tonight (and it wasn't even close.) 4 1/2 stars.

I love that in the escape they called back all of the Mom shopping tips. That was great.

I also love hearing that Meg thinks Peter's stupidity and dumb ideas are fun. Not my take but I appreciate that Meg has it. Her hug with Lois at the end was great too.

I don't know about Stewie and Brian's thing. I felt like the entire reason their friendship was threatened was because the friend therapist was playing headgames with them and pitting them against each other. And then he's shocked, SHOCKED (and outraged!) they get into a fight after his passive-aggressiveness goads them into it. I would not ever go to that idiot for relationship advice.

I love the bit about the yogurt pretzels. And yeah, she said it again. Peter is VERY good at being a bad kid.

I also loved the demand at the resort that every piece of food they were brought be in a hollowed out fruit. THAT'S luxury!

The shared kidnapping space was funny too, because it was being treated like an office.

Good week. Meg episodes tend to be good. 4 stars.

You know, as far as jokes go, the idea that a Foot Locker Employee going to work is sadder than Election Night 2016 is incredibly mean. Even for this show.

By the way the feral cats in a flashy dress would be an improvement from Meghan McCain. But her dad who died was somebody important so we have to hear her out.

I love the bit of the garbageman saying "And then your mind creates the scenario".

I love that they used actually footage from the show for the Shark Tank bit.

2 drawers out of 4? This has gone too far. Also Joe eating graham crackers outside of the perforated lines means he's turned into some sort of Mad King.

The two bits with the guys seeing Chris' one-man-show were great, particularly the second, and I especially love how they tied into each other so well.

I HATED the Jamie Lee Curtis joke. Because it's true and painful. Crap like that IS what she's currently best known for. What was she thinking?

Lois being impressed Peter said she was right is the entire problem with Lois. After every wretched week, no matter what sociopathic stuff he's done, Peter winds up saying she's right afterwards and she keep forgiving him. That should NOT be the actual bar in a relationship. Especially if the admission of wrongness always seems to come AFTER you've hurt the person and not before.

It was a good week nonetheless. Most of the individual jokes landed. 4 stars.

I was very glad this was a take-down of Kevin James instead of a guest role where he plays himself. I used to kind of like James and The King Of Queens, but he bugs me now. Not just because he hooked up with Adam Sandler (although that didn't help). But the drama "Kevin Can F Himself" really put into stark relief to me how toxic that kind of humor is. Do you know the irony? It's the same kind of thing Family Guy does. I guess I forgive Family Guy because it's a cartoon. It's hard to forgive toxicity when it's real people.

The show mentioning all 50 examples of those kind of shows where guests come in and stay permanently in the Pilot is why the show has value. It commits to bits like that. And whether MacFarlane blew out his voice or not, he can still do them fine.

One last note: The show mentions that network TV makes you feel good and Streaming is all about making you depressed. That's SORT of true, but not entirely. For my money, most network TV outside of sitcoms has become just as depressing as everything on streaming and cable. Secondly, I dispute the notion that it's streaming's complexity that leads to that. I personally think if writers had a mind to, they could write complex shows that make the viewer feel good. It's not either / or. And I think BOTH formats largely suck, and TV as a whole sucks, because nobody gets this.

Just relieved this was a slam at James instead of a Valentine starring him. Not a great night for Fox Toons. I'll consider the winner a draw between this show and Bob's Burgers. 3 1/2 stars.

There is some SERIOUS built-in resentment from Family Guy that Bob's Burgers stole their time slot and their thunder (and this was BEFORE the move to Wednesdays) and I am here for it. The fact that H Jon Benjamin is part of the public humiliation is pure comedy gold. Poor Darren.

I don't watch sports, but I am certain those contractual spoken promos are at times super inconvenient, and yes, inappropriate. Somebody lays a giant turd on Family Guy? What else is new?

I feel like as far as political references go Barbara Bush's haircut is... not current. Seriously.

The show going out of its way not to pay the supporting voice cast of The Cleveland Show to voice their characters. It's getting noticeable at this point.

That turd really turned into a saga. And it wasn't even made of gold.

Is it just me or has the show gone out of its way in recent years to say that Peter and Lois don't even like each other? I agree with both of them because they both suck.

I love Meg dapping Brian over living a dog life. I adore what the show has turned Meg into over these past couple of seasons. Before she was a gross punchline who was always miserable. Now she owns it like a boss and a queen. The character is so much more fun and funnier that you realize if the show's writers were more talented, this would have been the take all along. To be fair, I suspect a LOT of current comedy experimentation on the show is because they had to retire the politically incorrect jokes. But Meg is still funnier than she's ever been so how is the show worse off for that?

The reason Preston wasn't mad was predictable and cliched, but points for putting in the story legwork there anyways. It's dumb, but it fits.

Chris's creepiness is starting to bother me. I think the difference is that the show is portraying the behavior as objectionable instead of funny for the first time. Again, the political correctness probably is a factor there. But while Meg is helped, Chris is hurt. Quagmire is kind of a push.

I liked it. Poor Darren. I actually was a week late in seeing this on Hulu because I had no idea it aired. I think Fox is deliberately TRYING to kill the show. 4 stars.

Occasionally the show does a story so repulsive I just can't even bother with it. This was one of those weeks. Purely appalling on every level.

Family Guy isn't allowed to tell racist jokes anymore? This isn't the answer. 0.

The James Bond parody was all right, but really, the other stuff was not.

Seriously, I hate that Fox Animation is so into these stupid trilogy episodes. Outside of Treehouse Of Horror, Anthology Of Interest, and Family Guy Viewer Mail, they tend to suck. Surprise! This episode sucked! I don't get why Family Guy, Bob's Burgers, and The Great North are so invested in this crap. I notice American Dad never does it. Another one of the reasons American Dad is a way more solid show than Family Guy.

Here's something sad. Peter tries to make fun of Donna being M in a racial way, but says standards have changed, and he's not allowed to make those jokes anymore. I'm not gonna say those jokes were ever funny. But saying them, and then saying "Ulp, we can't say that anymore," makes them unbearably sad and pathetic. And I am not just leveling this feeling of pity to Peter for making the bad joke. But at Seth MacFarlane for not understanding immediately buying back a joke like that is a comedy dead-end. Family Guy specifically once made fun of how terrible that is in the Magic Johnson training video in one of the Star Wars Specials. "Nah, but they WILL be trying to kill you," was done because buying back a bad joke is far worse than simply not having the good sense to not tell it. We didn't need MMM,HMM, and we aren't better off for Peter not getting a laugh with it. It's weird the show thinks Peter will spin comedy gold out of Magic Johnson's turds.

But besides that, the format blows. 1 1/2 stars.

I thought it REALLY sucked. And I guess the reason I thought it sucked isn't because the premise was gross. It's because it wasn't, and it was acting like it was. It was no big deal. I think the Sethverse has a lot of very weird and sexual ideas about ordinary things that have nothing to do with sex. And the show could argue it's finding the humor in it. But they are making up a "humorous" situation out of whole cloth so it's not actually funny. There is no truth to what they making fun of. It feels lazy. And yes, the exact same kind of writing I push back against in my own work.

In a TV show that isn't desperate for plot ideas and running on fumes, Meg saving Peter's life would be a nice thing. And Family Guy is why we aren't allowed to have nice things.

And let me be frank. We as an audience deserve nice things. We don't deserve to be insulted in this way and treated like the studio audience to Married... With Children. Family Guy can take ANY normal and even cool premise and cynically find a way to say it's dirty and sexually shameful. I don't respond to that. If it was necessary or truthful, I might. But it's stupid and reveals more about the writers' dysfunction rather than Meg's.

I really wish Meg had been allowed at the end to just not forgive Peter. When she's like "We've had this conversation before and nothing ever changes," I'm like "Why SHOULD she forgive him?" Do the writers think I will think less of Meg if she stands up for herself? It's a weird concern because Meg is right the Total Reset Button will be hit anyways. Not only does Meg need not forgive Peter THIS week, she doesn't need to forgive him EVER for the show to still work. And it's crap like that that really annoys me and makes me sad.

There were a couple of decent jokes, but I don't feel like mentioning them or complimenting them right now. The show is doing very wrong by the audience simply because it's run out of episode ideas. And honestly, I think when it comes to stuff like this this, and MANY of the incestuous plots the show has been using over the past couple of years, it's fine to go back to the drawing board and think up something else. Just because a writer had this weird and gross idea, doesn't mean it it didn't need to be immediately shot down in the writers' room, but also complete production instead. I resent it. As an audience member whose humor is not actually trashy, I hate when Family Guy panders to that. Especially because I love the show when it's smart, (and it IS a lot of time). But the fact that it's also stupid and gross at times which is why my love for it always has an asterisk next to it.

Not happy. 1 star.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me Peter's speech at the end was a defense of casting Mike Henry as Cleveland. If Seth and his writers felt that strongly about it, they could have kept Henry. The fact they knew it was actually insulting makes Peter's speech here let us all know how insincere they have always been about the subject.

Stewie running away from the decent red carpet question was SO freaking apt in this same episode.

My favorite bit was Stewie's "Oh no. Oh no." Which ends with him discreetly taking the phone and saying "I'll take that, dear." It's the "dear" that cracks me up. I love when Stewie talks like an old lady.

Peter's poor performance doesn't really strike me as the real issue. It's who would want to see this movie in the first place? Honestly, that question could be asked of a LOT of movies that suck and save Hollywood a bunch of time and money.

Peter's "pranks" on the set seem to be a pointed critique at George Clooney. I am shocked Clooney has never been taken down by MeToo. I think Peter hit the issue correctly in an earlier episode: "It's funny because you're handsome." If Clooney looked like Jerry Seinfeld he'd never work again. That sort of pisses me off.

The episode pushed some buttons, but ultimately I think it landed on the wrong side of things. Not the first time the show has done that. 2 1/2 stars.

Okay, Brian's met Jesus and watched him perform a miracle, and was later beat up by God. Does he believe in this stuff yet?

God giving Brian and Stewie noogies was great. Fix it, fix it, fix it! He's an Amazon delivery man because without the plate being passed around he has to pay for Direct TV somehow.

I didn't find the Jewish jokes that great (pretty tame) but Jesus' set was not bad.

It says something about Brian that he is willing to upend all of human civilization just because a hot girl dumps him. And that's pretty much what he did, right?

Brian cannot argue politics to save his life. I love Stewie's response to Brian saying Trump is divorced. "That's ALL you've got on Trump?" This is why liberals drive me crazy. The divorced thing is always the first thing they bring up. I thought it was really great the show was saying that doesn't matter compared to everything else. It's not like there isn't a ton of religious hypocrisy to unpack with him and his followers. The divorced thing is pretty low hanging fruit.

I always thought it was weird that Jesus' mother and the prostitute he hung out with had the same first name, but I couldn't put into words WHY it was weird. The episode stating it like that shows why it is.

I feel bad for atheists who watch this show. THIS is your best pop-culture advocate? That kind of pisses me off. Hey, at least Bill Maher isn't totally stupid and problematic. Oh. Wait.

It says something about Brian's stinginess that he ties a wooden cross to a string instead of getting a real necklace. They've done jokes about him being cheap even in this episode (see him mooching Jesus' hummus here) but that's pretty bad, even for him.

The show is coasting. It doesn't seem to know what to do with itself in the current climate. It had some funny jokes though. But if the show believes atheists' main argument against Evangelicals is that they are supposedly nerdy losers, they really aren't getting the idea. 3 1/2 stars.