Family Guy

I hate how television has people being so open about this stuff. Goddamn, that is NOT something Lois should be discussing with her kids. And I feel like television is trying to normalize a society that talks about every personal thing in their lives with ANYBODY despite it being nobody else's fucking business.

The whole episode was weird and fucked up. Also, not really funny either. Which is not usual for this show. 1 star.

The Michelle Obama thing was horrible. It was supposed to be, but no.

Anytime Stewie gets a subplot with Rupert it's gross and it sucks. Bring back Doug.

They got Keith David to say "Whasssssuuuup?" I also love "I'm gonna go with the nerds."

Brian asks Mort to giftwrap Plan C because he is just the worst.

Suits: Where are they now? Huh. A little different. I love that.

So of it was funny, some of it was gross. 3 stars.

God, network TV is SO gutless about this subject. I actually expected better. Fox let them do the joke, "Psst! Do you want an abortion?" "EXCUUUUSE ME?!?!?" "I just asked if you needed an abortion." "Oh, I thought you said 'Astros suck'. Sure, I'll take an abortion." Fox letting letting them do that joke is the worm on the hook. But you know what happens when you take the bait, producers. You're screwed.

Drew Carey has done the show before, but he must have declined this time, which is why they felt comfortable doing the cruel slams they did. And this is why I would advise ALL celebrities to stay away from Family Guy. Seth MacFarlane has absolutely NO loyalty to people who have previously done him favors.

You think you are protecting yourself from future ridicule here, Kyle Chandler? Sorry, that would only work if MacFarlane weren't a total scumbag. And he's the dude who turned his surrogate character into THAT. He'll turn you in for a Texas bounty before he ever says anything kind about you in the future

Joe is making fun of the reason Banksy is anonymous, but the truth is much of his graffiti is criminal. The secret identity isn't to protect himself from prying fans. It's to be legally safe from prosecution. Nothing more underground than that.

Meg knowing so much about abortion clinics in town was funny, but I feel like it would have been MUCH funnier if Brian had said "Hold up," to all that. Him not caring instead was wasted comedy potential.

I was pissed off by the end of this. 2 stars.

An interesting (and true) moral is that even if one were to disagree with censoring racist children's books, the people who'll have your back in the argument are Magas and Nazis. Which ought to give you pause.

I'm a writer myself, and I have just as much license to have a dumb opinion about this as Brian does, but what the show is describing has happened to Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and other similar kids books is not what happened. They didn't replace the regular plot and dialogue with Woke and non-offensive terms. They just got rid of the worst racist stuff. And say what you will about Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and The Wizard Of Oz, neither book is literary genius. What they are are kids books, and I think kids ought to be allowed to read them without getting exposed to Dahl's and Baum's grosser ideas. What happened to those kids books is something I think all children's book authors need to watch out for, especially if they decide to include controversial elements. Protecting kids from gross and harmful stuff in kiddie books is important. And the reason this makes sense to me is that I have read very few kids books that I would consider great literature. And the rare ones that are? They don't have this problematic shit in them to begin with.

Just so you know that Brian's opinion is wrong, the Estate of Ted Geisel, Dr. Seuss himself, was totally on-board taking some of his racist books out of print. I think it's a bit rich that the guy who wrote a book so bad both Woke people AND Magas hate it doesn't have much of a leg to stand on in recognizing artistic integrity.

I wonder. I wonder exactly how many people are like me, and were outright pissed off at Peter's intervention over his sobriety. I don't really like fiction, especially comedy's, tendency to get possessive about jokes and premises. But you know how when The Simpsons had Homer become Death in one of the Halloween episodes? That was totally inappropriate because that was the thing Family Guy, at the point that Simpsons episode aired, was far and away most famous for.

The most damning thing about it, is Al Jean, who NEVER missed a chance to take a shot at how derivative Family Guy was of The Simpsons (with most of those complaints actually being untrue), claimed to have not known Family Guy already did that bit, If there is no bigger example of the fact that Al Jean is pop culturally illiterate and had NO business being showrunner of a series that leaned into pop-culture homages as much as The Simpsons did, it's him claiming never to have heard of the most famous thing the very show he tells everyone how much it sucks and ripped him off ever did. Worst. Showrunner. EVER.

Getting back to the sobriety intervention. I was like "Titus" fucking OWNED that in its Pilot episode. I think there is leeway from different shows to borrow from each other. MacFarlane does too which is why he unapologetically does The Orville and I'm unapologetically a fan as well.

But it's dirty pool to rip off the best, most remembered thing about ANY given project, especially one as great as Titus, especially considering Titus is almost entirely (unfairly) forgotten otherwise.

The other famous Titus bit I never forgot was the gun episode. It had a flashback to little kid Christopher at a gun show asking Papa Titus for a gun. And Papa Titus says in front of the scary-looking gun dealer, "Now, son, you don't want a gun. The men in our family have penises." Again, I think once a joke it out there it's fair game to retell it. But you don't repeat the most famous bits.

The thing that pisses me off is that I am 100% certain the Family Guy producers know Titus already did this bit. Despite what I said about The Simpsons doing a ton of pop-culture references, the producers of that show's knowledge was a mile wide and an inch deep. When they had Jason Mamoa guest star he did Aquaman jokes not outside of how the character was portrayed on the Superfriends because the producers literally knew nothing else about the actor, not even the version of Aquaman he played. When Brittany Spears cameoed she introduced herself by saying "It's me, teen sensation Brittany Spears!" When N-SYNC guest starred the only word Justin Timberlake was permitted to say was "Word!" (which actually rightfully pissed off Timberlake behind the scenes). When Mark Hamill guest starred, they had him dressing up like Luke Skywalker to do dinner theater (which also offended Hamill). Even MORE disgusting was the fact that Hamill offered to do a couple more voices in the episode and the producers had NO fucking idea he was a famous voice-actor and at that point was probably as equally famous for the Joker as he was Luke. The Simpsons doing this shit sucks but it's on-brand for how lazy and uncool the writers are.

The writers of Family Guy are just talented enough, and have JUST good enough taste, and are JUST with-it enough that they know about the Titus thing, and just hoped nobody would catch them. I did and they suck for it. Bite me, Fuzzy Door.

When is a review about Family Guy not actually about Family Guy? When Matt gets done with it. Sorry about that. **1/2.

Because Seth MacFarlane is a liberal I assumed he'd take the liberal young adult comedy field for himself. That what I would have done in his place. Instead the "Trump got reelected and we can all say Merry Christmas again," thing proves that MacFarlane is a fucking political coward. He could have really done some harsh contrarian comedy about the times we're in. Instead, he takes Trump being back as license to be a bigoted asshole again.

Not remotely the choice I would have made, and I think much less of him for it.

If this is not an outlier and this shit continues next season, I might be dropping the show. That's how pissed off tonight made me. 0.