After Channel 4’s recent Top 100 cartoons marathon, which ranked the US cartoon in 5th place, it seems relevant to ask the question …
What do you mean you’ve never seen Family Guy?
“It seems today, that all you see, is violence in movies and sex on TV. But where are those good old fashioned values on which we used to rely?”
I doubt Mary Whitehouse would agree with this statement, but thankfully the ‘classic era’ of family friendly entertainment - Morecambe and Wise etc - is long over (that’s if you discount the conveyer belt of crap that is Saturday night terrestrial television). Today, we have more filth and dirt than you could shake the proverbial stick at, and TV is all the better for it. Any show that could easily cause
Thankfully Family Guy is one series which has always done so. Despite inevitable comparisons to The Simpsons, South Park and King of the Hill, Family Guy is unique. Not only is it much cruder but also, in the surreal stakes, it ups the ante. From the first ever show and throughout all 50 currently released episodes, there is an omnipresent intention to both shock and entertain in the way that all great comedies should. Whereas some people may be disgusted, others will double over with laughter - proof, if it were needed, that the mix of humour and bad taste is in perfect quantities.
So far, there have been three delightfully varied and increasingly hilarious series of Family Guy. Originally on UK screens via the medium of Channel Four television at the end of the last millennium, the show has found its major success on DVD - in fact it is the biggest selling DVD of a TV series ever. Yet there still remains a large section of the public who have never seen the program, and for whom there is a box of delights just waiting to be opened.
“Lucky there’s a family guy. Lucky there’s a man who, positively can do, all the things that make us laugh and cry"
Peter Griffin is a Toy Factory employee who, along with his adoring wife Lois and all-American family of oversized and neurotic kids - namely quintessential teenager Meg, obsessive loser Chris and Wonderfully Machiavellian Baby Stewie - are the focal point for most of the series’ storylines. Set in the Rhode Island town of Quahog, it is essentially a skewed look at family life, centred around their most valued possession; their television. Yet, whereas the family unit has previously been used by adult orientated cartoons as a vehicle for one character, in Peter and Stewie, the program has two people who, despite being entirely different, are equally as funny and entertaining.
Admittedly, it is a cliché to remark that ‘nothing is sacred’ or to add that ‘no stone is unturned, but it really is the case in this instance. Religion, age, race, class, gender, death and even species all manage to come under fire, but in a knowing tongue in cheek way. The vast array of episodes cover everything seemingly possible, and everything you’d never dream of thinking of - the porn career of the family pet dog Brian, a nuclear holocaust, an addictive breed of frog, a robotic
Indeed, if there were ever boundaries to the ‘Cartoon sitcom’, they have been well and truly removed. In both season 2 & 3, there are shows that focus on the voyage of Stewie and Brian the dog, (a sort of Charlie Brown and Snoopy with swearing) namely ‘Rhode to Rhode Island’ and ‘Rhode to Europe’, which splendidly show off the final string to Family Guy’s bow - the theatrical element. Mere comedy is fine, but add a glitzier element and you can keep an audience exactly where you want them - in front of the tele.
Yet, even the sense of humour in itself is quite different to its counterparts. It seems a little snobby to say so, but whilst the humour takes its cue from American points of reference, it is more akin to The Goon Show or Harry Hill’s world than it is to its American rivals. There are not many US TV shows where a scene of a man fighting a chicken for two whole minutes would make the final cut, let alone be one of the program’s defining moments. However, there is something extremely Monty Python-like about the whole idea, and would fit in easily to a schedule in this country. Maybe that’s why the Brits have taken to the program so well - there’s something vaguely familiar about the whole affair.
Although the show was originally cancelled in the USA, there has been a fourth series commissioned (35 episodes!) and which is due to hit their screens extremely soon, purely on the strength of fan interest and huge DVD sales. When it heads this way, my advice to you is to watch and enjoy - it’s not every day that you get the chance to resurrect something from the dead. The second coming of Family Guy should be very special indeed.
Stephen Morse.
Do you agree with this article? Or disagree? If it's the latter, get out of here, you crazy fool. If it's the former, well, click here to talk about the show on our tv forum then...!
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