Kicking Someone While They're AFK.

[athelind]

normanrafferty is on vacation at the moment, and I don't know how often he'll be able to catch up on LJ. When I stumbled across Something Old, Nothing New: Why I Hate Family Guy, however, I felt I had to at least make a passing reference to it in my journal.

Personally, I don't hate the show; I'm indifferent to it. Raffy loves it, though, and that's nigh-inexplicable to me. Our Favorite Rat frequently castigates mass media for being unoriginal, derivative, crammed full of in-jokes that are only funny if you recognize the references, and not nearly as shocking or daring as they pretend to be (a.k.a. "Behind the Railing").

Family Guy scores four out of four on that scale. As I said, I'm indifferent to the show, so I never bothered to enumerate all that before. Weinman deconstructs the show's flaws admirably.

Comments

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Mostly I just really didn't like the show for the way the nerdy characters were presented. It just seemed really cheap...

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

I found family guy a pretty mediocre show that had consistenly ONE funny joke per episode that I genuinely laughed at. And sometimes cracked me up. Which is more than I can say for the last five or so seasons of The Simpsons. If you want unoriginal and derivative, check out what the Simpsons has become.

Family Guy has the same kind of legion of fans that The Critic had, which I put it on about the same level as far as 'references = funny' and so forth. In fact Family Guy is usually better than The Critic.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I get a chuckle out of a well-placed reference myself... But it that's the only thing (or nearly the only thing) the show has to offer, it sure as heck ain't enough.

[rikoshi.livejournal.com]

The reference-based humor in The Critic was, at least in my opinion, slightly better well-done than it is in Family Guy, at least on an average basis. There are some that stand out (such as the entire Willy Wonka episode, and the infamous Kool-Aid Man moment) that definitely put Family Guy into the realm of 'funnier than it probably should be.'

Still, whether I laugh or laugh and feel like a goon for doing so, I've still laughed.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Concurrent and separate from the reference-based humor in The Critic was the character-based humor, which was better, and indeed better than the character-based humor of most other animated shows. I think people don't recognize the depth of The Critic's characters simply because they don't have typical nuclear-family roles. Most people will immediately identify "mom," "dad," "sister," "brother," and "baby" and feel they already know most of what they need to know about the characters, whereas an anxious, depressive, divorced, semi-famous intellectual film snob is somebody they don't know, don't care about, and would probably beat up if they got the chance. Without that crutch, the characters must stand on the strength of personality traits alone, and I think they do. Or maybe that's only because those are the sort of people I know.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I'd have to agree there, Kevin.

On the other side of it, most (though not all) of the reference-based humor in The Critic grew directly out of the show's premise. It was a sitcom about a movie critic, and so quick parodies of current films was part and parcel of the format. They didn't just limit it to current films, either, IIRC; "classics" were often lampooned as well.

The Critic would also make some effort to make the references part of an actual joke, rather than just tossing out "Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids!" and pretending it's inherently funny.

Oh, wait, the Trix line wasn't from Family Guy, was it?

[drakegrey.livejournal.com]

Wow, synchronicity: I had a Family Guy post in the queue ready to go for my own LJ.

Well, guess I can't post it, as it was itself a topical reference and you know, the what not. :)

And what can I say. I like their dog, Brian. :)

--Drake