Sick, twisted, politically incorrect and Freakin' Sweet animated series featuring the adventures of the dysfunctional Griffin family. Bumbling Peter and long-suffering Lois have three kids. Stewie (a brilliant but sadistic baby bent on killing his mother and taking over the world), Meg (the oldest, and is the most unpopular girl in town) and Chris (the middle kid, he's not very bright but has a passion for movies). The final member of the family is Brian - a talking dog and much more than a pet, he keeps Stewie in check whilst sipping Martinis and sorting through his own life issues.
08 Nov Family Guy (1999- )
Formulas
It all started with “The Flintstones”, I suppose. In its time, it was novel. Since then we’ve had a number of versions of the dumb dad cartoon. This one was recommended to me by a reader because it is edgier than the others.
Here’s the formula we have to all these: “Simpsons,” “South Park,” this.
Three elements to the formula:
- The story which involves some hairbrained situation which has an old fashioned moral. No matter how risky or gross the humor, it is “justified” by this.
- A carefully metered dose of “edgy” jokes about sex, religion and politics, sometimes death.
- Shifts from the story into self-referential alternative worlds from other TeeVee shows.
The third is what my friend thought I would like, mostly because it is so prominent. — the notion is that these characters all know they are in movieland and that all their jokes and doings are from that world. So they move seamlessly from their town into other worlds.
Seemed like tame stuff to me. That’s because of the limits of TeeVee I suppose. See what the South Park guys did with the big screen without these limits. I’m not impressed.
Posted in 2005
Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
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