[Incoherent but genuine rant] Family Guy isn't funny, but the existence of Family Guy is extremely funny
[Incoherent but genuine rant] Family Guy isn't funny, but the existence of Family Guy is extremely funny
I don't know how else to phrase this but hear me out
Is Family Guy funny? 98% of the time, no. There are a couple genuinely funny bits tossed in here and there but the average episode of Family Guy is some weird, uninteresting plot that keeps getting interrupted every 2 minutes with some cutaway gag that usually involves some form of bigotry/violence against a minority group or a crude joke no one over the age of 15 finds funny. Sometimes there will be a sort of funny gag about how your local pizza place makes the worst "salad" or that one bit about Pat Tillman which was really funny, but I can't imagine anyone older than the age of 16 saying "yeah, time to turn on the TV and watch Family Guy!"
Literally who is the target audience for this? This show has been going on for nearly a quarter century now and stopped being good after like three years and yet it still keeps getting renewed. I don't know anyone who watches it. I couldn't even imagine what a Family Guy fan would even look like. Like, if I walked in on someone sitting on the couch at their house and they were unironically tuned into Family Guy, I'd be thinking "holy shit is this guy for real?". But apparently, considering how much air time and ratings this show gets, there are millions of people out there watching what's basically the equivalent of a dollar store joke book written by your racist uncle that nobody wants to invite to thanksgiving. Everyone knows about it, it's not funny, nobody yet also millions watch it? I can make Family Guy references and people get what I'm talking about because we've all fucking seen it and nobody likes it. It's just this white noise TV show that you just use to fill space. It might as well just a blank screen that read [Insert TV program here] because it just feels like filler. You can just put Family Guy in literally anything and it somehow just... fits? It's the TV show that you put on when no one actually wants to watch it. Remember like 6 years ago when "they added Peter Griffin to Fortnite" was a dumb meme? It was a dumb meme, and then they made it real because after it was funny, then it became real and now it's just like. Yep. They got Peter Griffin in Fortnite"
Family Guy isn't funny, but it's deeply funny in the metasense because of it's omnipresence and renown, clear attempt at humor, yet complete lack of anything approaching substance to say nor any coherent overarching message. Forget the average Family Guy viewer, who writes this shit. I genuinely can't imagine anyone who makes this show actually wants to write more Family guy, they just do it because they're Family Guy writers and that's what pays the bills. Didn't we have a post here like 3 days ago saying that Patrick Warburton and his mom really want to quit the show? It's even more incongruous because there's even a handful of times where they TRY to have some kind of moving message or deeper themes, like the one episode where Brian and Stewie are trapped in the bank vault all night and Brian opens up about his suicidality and alcoholism and there's either very few or no cutaway gags. But of course, it's Family Guy so they can't actually do something interesting or good without fucking it up so of course they write in a joke about how "haha brian has to like stewie's poop off his ass"
I don't know how to put it into words other than I'm laughing at a clown that isn't funny. It's trying to be funny, it isn't, and THAT'S what's funny. Come to think of it, that's basically what I've always thought about Big Chungus and why I ran that as a pfp/username here for like 3 years. It's the comedic equivalent to "Ceci n'est pas une pipe". "This is not a joke", yet it clearly presents as one
As a result, all I can do whenever I see Peter Griffin in literally anything is just laugh because it's just not funny. I can make myself cackle by doing a bad Peter Griffin impression saying "Hey Lois" because shitposting about Family Guy is just what the fucking writing staff of that show does
I couldn't even imagine what a Family Guy fan would even look like.
I legitimately met one at a wedding last year. He was one of the groomsmen. Tall extremely normie looking white dude. We did the whole intro thing and the conversation died incredibly hard so in desperation I pulled the "what do you like to do outside of work" question and he thought about it for a minute and then said "watch family guy, mostly" I was fuckin floored lmao
MOSTLY??
I worked with the worst dude for a bit who said Family Guy had 'genius satire'. I'm certain he didn't know what either word meant.
Is there enough family guy for that kind of consumption, or does he watch it endlessly on repeat?
if he watched 4 hours a day it would take almost 2 months to repeat
"Heheheheheheh, hey Lois, I said Cockshott"
The show is often painfully mean and in all of the wrong ways to all of the wrong people and that is what kills it for me. There’s probably some funny writing somewhere here and there but it is extremely “aggrieved white guy” energy at all times. If you go back to a lot of the episodes of Johnny Bravo Macfarlane worked on you can see it there, too; it’s very off-putting. I am also not really that plugged in to modern memetic culture or anything, I understand what you’re getting at because I did get a kick out of a lot of the steamed hams stuff when that was a thing but T-posing Peter and et cetera has never done it for me, I don’t get it. I’m getting too old for this crap.
the episodes of Johnny Bravo Macfarlane worked on
He what
This show has been going on for nearly a quarter century now
Not-pipe-ism is definitely a big mainstay of meme culture in general. Steamed Hams leaps to mind - the meme isn't about the jokes in the skit, it's literally just the fact that it exists, which is why all the memes are about transforming it into other shit. Like there's nothing funny about Soviet surrealist animation, so when someone turned Steamed Hams into an homage to it the homage itself wasn't actually funny, but the fact that somebody made it is deeply hilarious.
I dunno, it feels like some Signs and Simulacra shit. I'm too stupid to really grasp it, but maybe someone else in here can expand on it.
Agreed, but I will say that the original Steamed Hams bit was actually some really well written comedy in a very academic sense (if you could get academic about comedy) and it stopped being funny because any comedy routine will get stale if you watch it 1,000 times
And yet if you watch it 1,001 times, it becomes funny again because the act of watching it becomes part of the comedy, like Sisyphus getting hit in the balls with the giant boulder
I'm not saying the original skit isn't funny - just that the actual humor itself is irrelevant to the meme.
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The Simpsons is like the less edgy version of this, South Park the slightly more edgy version, and Spongebob Squarepants the kid-friendly version. And I have a gut feeling that in ten years' time people will be asking "who are the millions of people still watching Rick and Morty?", which will mark its ascent into the pantheon of American cartoons that can literally never be cancelled.
I think old Simpsons is still very good, and Spongebob seasons 1-3 are genuinely really funny and cute cartoons to this day. There was a point about when the movie came out where it stopped being all that good I think but until that it is still fun viewing. Go back and watch them sometime!
Agreed, I would say that having a good first few seasons is a necessary ingredient to create the "American Cartoon that Never Gets Cancelled" that we see in my examples. Early Spongebob holds up the best out of the four because it's timeless, while Family Guy/South Park/The Simpsons are all pretty heavily rooted in the era they were created in, but all of them were definitely beloved by their original audience in their original context.
SpongeBob seasons 1-4 are goated. They changed the animation style and flanderized all the characters, got rid of all the good writers. I can't go that long without making a SpongeBob reference or joke because it's just so on point every time lmao.
Totally agree. I've watched a few episodes of NewBob with my younger siblings and it's painfully bad, but there's a reason why spongebob memes are all from those first few seasons and are still so prevalent.
It's a "background noise" sitcom that isn't constrained by cast salaries or real life. What I mean by that is that with a regular 4 camera sitcom, you have to have all the camera people, mic people, set and props people, who all make sure the scene is reset for each take. Every actor in the scene needs to be present, and if one flubs their line, they all have to restart and do it again. A five minute scene can take several hours.
For animated shows, it's usually recorded one by one in a booth. If the actor flubs a line, they just re-record the line. Even if a character is onscreen for a majority of the episode, dubbing their lines for the entire episode would take no more than an hour.
In true Capitalist fashion, it's a known product that is cheap and easy to make, and people will just consume it for the background noise and easy watching.
The animation is the extremely expensive part - which is precisely why Family Guy has always looked really cheap, with tons of reused assets and long scenes of characters standing or sitting and not moving very much.
You have thought about Family Guy perhaps more than anyone on this Earth. Congratulations!
Me and EstraDoll 'bout to do a Family Guy obsession competition to see who can really claim that title
Maybe not as much as this guy's review of every single episode...
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Has the worst opening theme ever too. All in The Family parody that turns into the Simpsons circus couch gag and has the big show stopper gang vocals on the line 'on which we used to rely', the least iconic line to bring the whole thing into a showtune with. But Seth McFarlane is the straightest dude with the gayest tastes, so it follows.
I’m convinced that there are only three Straight men genuinely obsessed with musical theater and they are Seth Macfarlane, Donald Trump, and Mel Brooks.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker have 2 award winning musicals under their belts, let's not forget them. I think Mel Brooks is just one of the last dudes alive who remembers musical theater being more popular than cinema
Those ads for Indian food that use poorly photoshopped Family Guy images are some of the best pieces of art in any era.
Have to drop links with a hook like that
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=875632284029923&id=100047494789025&set=a.604366411156513
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3371368679813240&set=a.2389229151360536
These certainly hit different early-pandemic when just scrolling and something this dry would just pop up, but I'll be damned if it doesn't warm the cockles of my heart to this day.
Brave of you to insult the mods favorite TV show
My POS abusive father loves this show. I tried to show him an easy video game (He was an Atari guy back in the day, we flipped Space Invaders a few times) and he said to me 'that sounds like work' and he just wanted to watch Family Guy.
That's when I realized that shows like this provide some sort of dissociative experience for him that lets him tune out reality. He doesn't really like Peter and Brian and all that. He likes the comforting feeling of his mind accepting easily understood softball jokes that never disturb him with any actual thought or effort to think.
I don't like the show myself but it helped me understand why people like trash so much; each of us has some genre of books or movies or music or sports or whatever that just lets us zone out and stop suffering for a few minutes and that's fine.
too long didn't read but based on the title alone 100% true
the tl;dr is the show fucking sucks, it's 22 minutes of fucking nothing of substance and everyone hates it and yet it's been rolling for 22 goddamn seasons and still is super popular somehow
What's a bit weird about this post is you say you have never met a Family Guy fan, struggle to imagine one, but reference like four episodes of the show, only one of which I've vaguely recognize. Maybe it's just via cultural osmosis but you seem to be more knowledgeable about it than most.
While I have never really liked family guy, I find American Dad to be very funny, if only for Roger, who is probably the most malevolent cartoon character since Cartman, but it's funnier because he is literally a crazy alien guy, and no one else in the family is particularly sane.
I also love how it took like 8 seasons for them to realize he was in disguises
When it came out I figures there's no way it would last longer than the Bush administration cause the entire premise is SO based in that moment. When the core premise became a non thing in pop culture cause Obama sent us back to brunch, the show just got really fucking weird. I don't watch it but when I see it here and there I'm not having a bad time
non-sequitur humor with a side of South Park shock humor, but none of it goes anywhere so no one can critique it because it is empty of any meaning or thought
gish gallop humor as a business model
if I try to think of "Family Guy fans" the only thing I can think of are "middle schoolers in the 2000s," but then I remember that not even they watched Family Guy, they mostly just watched South Park
Family Guy was popular in the 2000’s with middle schoolers who liked the edgy humor. It helped that you didn’t need cable to see it like you did with South Park so more kids were aware of it.
This title is the most relatable thing I've ever read. You've said something I've been trying to say for ages, but I couldn't word it correctly. You did it! Thanks!
So you're saying if we repost this image enough we can lathe into existence the writers putting it into the show
They're beautiful.
I like the first three seaons, or however long they went before it first got canceled.
Yeah, Peter actually had some character in the first three seasons, as did the rest of the Griffin family. That's another thing, all of the characters are so fucking flat. Lois's sole character function is to be a fucking nag to Peter's absurd bullshit, but in a sense that makes her the most well written character of all because at least I can think of a personality trait. HERE WE GO, THAT'S THE WORDS I WAS LOOKING FOR: Every character is essentially just a fucking puppet. Everyone feels like a stock character, and in a sense, nothing is ever out of character for them to say because their characters are all so flat that there's basically nothing that's in character for them. Peter Griffin isn't a character, he's just a silly puppet in the fucking puppet show, just like every other puppet
EVERYONE HATES MEG BECAUSE MEG'S ONLY PERSONALITY TRAIT IS THAT EVERYONE HATES HER. BRAIN IS A WISEASS BECAUSE HE'S A WISEASS. I LITERALLY CAN'T COME UP WITH A SINGLE ADJECTIVE TO DESCRIBE CHRIS. THE DOCTOR GUY LOOKS LIKE EVERY DOCTOR BECAUSE HE'S A DOCTOR. THE SAILOR GUY'S PERSONALITY IS SAILOR AND HE HAS 4 PEGLEGS BECAUSE ISN'T THAT A SILLY? THERE ISN'T A REASON OR DRIVE BEHIND ANYONE. FAMILY GUY IS A TV SHOW WHERE THE CHARACTERS ALL LACK CHARACTER, THEY'RE JUST DUMB FUCKING PUPPETS. I AM 4 YEARS OLD AND WATCHING A PUPPET SHOW FOR BABIES EXCEPT IT'S RACIST
GOOD post
Humour is an odd form of entertainment, isn’t it. As a comparison; I don’t find Coldplay stimulating, but I also don’t find the existence of Coldplay stimulating.
My hot take is that I actually like scumbag brian. It's a funny bit how awful he is
The sole purpose of each and every piece of media is to become a basis for youtube poops.
^Yeah I read theory
My dad watches family guy regularly, so maybe it is a boomer thing??
I could tag at least like 3 regular Hexbear posters that like watching this show lol
Guys podcast just had a good ep about Seth MacFarlane guys
fammy guy
It's kinda like this stupid slapstick shit.
Then you have learning while being entertained.
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I don't watch this incredibly unfunny show, but I've had it running in the background on a few occasions when my TV was switched on while I was working, and as a result I've picked up some stuff, and sometimes had to switch the channel because I got annoyed.
CW: Transphobia
One thing I immediately noticed is the obvious transphobia throughout the show. I remember an episode in which Peter lied about being trans in order to take advantage of the "perks" of being a woman, and the whole thing was just tasteless and cringe. There's also a recurring trans woman character who appears in multiple episodes, and they draw her in a transphobic manner, like giving her an obviously exaggerated square jaw to make her stand out.
I liked it at 12yo because I was angry at the world and I wanted to express that, they swear constantly theres a lot of violence and at that time thats everything I wanted.
As an adult I cant see why you would watch that, I know someone that is an adult and watches it, he is a 25yo with the personality of a racist uncle and is always telling me to go to estonia to create a company. He has no class conciousness and Im fed up with him.
Im seriously struggling with my friend group I cant speak about politics and all they do is drink at the bar on the weekends, I need to find some leftists or better communists to hang with, but idk where they are and or how to find them.
family guy funny clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoHB7iGDFTU
please reply with family guy funny clips
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Blojob music like the Office
imagine not having a personality, no hobbies, nothing. Just...bad TV
Close call, luckily I watch good tv