Off Topic: Family Guy Is Really Funny

Friends were telling me for a while this was a funny show. Have you ever resisted watching something just because a friend oversold you on it? And then you sort of watch it with him, but you only begrudgingly say, "Yeah, that was okay," because he's sold it so hard you're just not in the mood to buy?

Well, anyway, my friends were right. It's a really good show. But I'm sure most of you know that. It borrows a lot from The Simpsons, but that's okay, because The Simpsons is now unwatchable; a watchable ripoff of that show is welcome.

And it gets a little silly, using that sort of humor that turned me off from The Critic. Every other scene is someone saying, "Yeah, that was as bad as when X did Y," and then there's this absurd (and usually unfunny) flashback, usually involving some pop-culture reference. I hate those.

Although they can be funny sometimes. The son remarks, "I'm as confused now as I was after watching No Way Out," and then there's a flashback to the kid leaving the theater, wondering, "How the hell does Kevin Costner still get work?"

But the rest of the show is pretty funny.

My favorite part is how they treat the daughter Megan. She seems to be a ripoff of Lisa from The Simpsons. Lisa is, and will always be, the lamest cartoon character in the history of the universe, worse even than Grape Ape or Jabberjaws. And Family Guy seems to get that, and they make their own Lisa really, really lame, and generally ignore her as a character, except to make nasty fun of her and make her life a living hell.

Very satisfying for those of us who've had to sit through that obligatory one-in-five Simpson's stories focusing on Lisa.

Anyway. Don't mean to oversell the show. It's Just Shoot Me funny, not, say, Seinfeld funny, or Simpsons-at-its-peak funny. But it is one of the few comedies on TV worth watching at all.

A little trivia (from Jon Favreau's Dinner For Five): Show creator and voice-actor Seth MacFarlane was scheduled to be on the first plane that hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, but missed it due to his assistant's error as well as the fact that he was hung over from drinking.

posted by Ace at 02:43 PM

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