2 Undeniably hilarious gags in 2nd Episode of Family Guy

(Note: this message is cross-posted to two newsgroups.)

I know this is off-topic, but many people in these two newsgroup have been really hard on Family Guy. In the show's defense, I want to point out two hilarious gags in the second episode:

A high school cheerleader says, "Isn't it great to be thin and popular?" Another cheerleader cheerfully responds, "Yeah. Let's go throw up."

Family Guy says "All I could afford was that big-ass pinyata." The camera cuts to the big-ass pinyata, which, literally, is haped like a big ass.

Family Guy's biggest flaw, IMHO, is over-derivativeness. And I must agree that the evil baby is not particularly funny. And the characters lack the depth and believability of the characters on The Simpsons, The Critic and Futurama. Nevertheless, occasional hilarious bits like those described above are enough to get me to keep watching.

In article , [email] says...

Jr. high level humor at best. Not that I find that joke funny in the least.

Been there, done that.. 100% Simpsons type humor. The rest of the humor is reminiscent of 'The Critic' and various fart jokes. The writers are uncreative leeches.

Chris.

Stewart, the evil baby, is the _only_ thing that makes that show bearable. I hope he kills off the family (except the mom - I like how they are foils to each other) and gets his own show.

Sean Vanderfluit wrote:

Agreed. The thing I like is that nobody else notices how smart & devious he is-his mom treats him like a typical 2-year-old, which of course he most definitely is not...

John DiFool

"[email] (John DiFool)" claims: << The thing I like is that nobody else notices how smart & devious he is-his mom treats him like a typical 2-year-old, which of course he most definitely is not.>>

Well, of course he's not a typical 2-year-old! He's only ONE!!!

tpe "I won a balloon!"

Right... He is only a year old

Mike Beattie

What about the "I said 'runt'" quote?! That was so unbelievbly funny. The Simpsons should take bigger risks like that one. -Mike Neuman The Futurama Archive - http://www.bart.simplenet.com/futurama

In alt.tv.futurama [email] explod |What about the "I said 'runt'" quote?! That was so unbelievbly funny. The |Simpsons should take bigger risks like that one.

Oooo! They alluded to a NAUGHTY WORD! By golly, that is *dangerous*... adventurous and *exciting*... why, they probably ran a serious risk of DETENTION!

Simpsons and Futurama are already taking plenty of risks.. namely, they're trying to use humor *slightly* more sophisticated than saying "doody".. Fox executives tend to loathe that sort of thing.

What risk do you think "Family Guy" is taking? it's PURE FORMULA.. the product of the collective wills of Fox's suits. Occasionally they'll collectively stumble across a gag that works... just like a room full of monkeys hitting typewriters will occasionally make something that appears to be a word.

Cripes. Is it just me, or do they mention "hitler" in *every episode*? Hey! They say "hitler" a lot! That means they're *edgy*! What could be *edgier* than Hitler? Woo! Risque!

"Stimulus response... stimulus response.. don't you ever THINK?" -gary larson

The Family Guy is what the simpsons should still be and what futurama has yet to become. FUNNY!

I've seen two episodes of Family Guy so far, and I only see two faults:

1: They borrow too much from other shows. The Simpsons being the major one. Especially when a character says something and the scene shifts to something else, or a flashback, to explain the joke. This has been done on The Simpsons, but at least they didn't do it every other line, which is what Family Guy does.

2: It's not funny. Unless you really enjoy the "shock" of a gag, it's not very clever. And they really, really steal from The Simpsons.

Jerry [email] (Jerry Cornelius) wrote in message ...

Thats the reason I've decided to quit watching it. probably the thing that did it for me was when the horse and buggy exploded. The Simpsons have been using the gag of things blowing up easy for years. The Family Guy has just cheapened the whole thing. That and the "no fat chicks" thing. Someone should start a list of all the Simpsons rip offs on the Family Guy. but then that might encourage someone to watch it.

On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 21:23:26 -0400, "Andy Andy" wrote:

Hmmm....... I guess it could morph into a show that you "love to hate". You know, something so bad that you tune in every week to see the new lows to which it will sink.

Ray 7

In alt.tv.futurama Ray explod

|Hmmm....... I guess it could morph into a show that you "love to |hate". You know, something so bad that you tune in every week to see |the new lows to which it will sink.

Unlikely, since it isn't even *bad* in a novel or interesting way. It's purely derivative.. and there's already enough rip-off productions to know what *that* is like.

No, it's not "so bad it's good".. it's just bad.

Ray wrote:

What else does one do between The Simpsons and The X-files? Watch the second half of Touched By an Angel? NBC has been putting crap in between their Thursday night hits for years because they have no real competition. Same with Fox. You have a choice of watching the second half of dramas, or possibly part of a movie. Or one might {gasp} not watch Tv.

Andy Andy wrote:

Not only that but the animation is a very cheezy. Reminds me of mediocre 70's Saturday non-Hanna Barbera cartoons.

On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 23:08:50 -0700, Scan wrote:

True, although sometimes good writing can make up for low-quality animation (eg, Rocky and Bullwinkle). Pity that Family Guy doesn't have it.

Ray

An unwitting pawn of the conspiracy, Jerry [email] (Jerry Cornelius) was slipped some Viagra� on 20 Apr 1999 22:41:11 GMT, and here's what popped up instead:

Looks like Seth McFarlane's (sp?) style.

I'm enjoying it. It harkens back to days when OFF would make be laugh-until-I-choked...

TTYL

Really? I thought that those were two of the least-funny jokes--I thought that the whole "For every sprinkle that I find...I shall KILL YOU!" thing was funny, as was the whole story the dad told about his trip to the Chuck E. Cheese-whatever place.

The baby is much funnier than I thought he would be--instead of just being a stupid loudmouth he's a hilarious anarchist that brings balance to the dopiness of the main plot.

Really? The Critic? It's almost the exact same show, my friend, with almost the exact same joke style--relentless and furious, they try to throw as many jokes as possible per minute so some of them have to work. And some don't. But the second episode of Family Guy was MUCH better than the first one.

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Rich Bunnell wrote:

It seems Simpsons and King of the Hill (the latter being one of the most watered down, character-oriented and least concerned with being funny comedies on the air) do a good enough job of that. As long as Family Guy slows down, and gives more exposure to the rest of Peter's family (particularly Chris), it's fine by me. There's nothing wrong with throwaway laughs. Sure, it won't last forever, but so what. FG is *creative*. It deserves points for that.

And yeah, The Critic didn't always have a bunch of highly developed characters. A lot of characters were used merely for insane gags like Jay's father, Jay's boss, Doris the hairdresser, etc. Usually only Jay, his son and that girl who was introduced at the start of the Fox year were the only ones who were developed on any serious level.

       Ondre J. Lombard  *  [email]  *
S1.2 OFF+++ LIS++> BOB++ TEE++ f+++  -  Always remember that you're never
n+ w ; 7G11, 7F07, 7F12, 8F06, 8F08  -  alone when you're a schizophrenic.
9F11, 2F15, 3F22, 5F17, 5F18 ; M17   -  "Poughkeepsie."
    "Sometimes the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making
      someone else feel bad.  And I'm tired of making other people feel
                          good about themselves."

I hadn't seen KOTH in ages but I saw part of a recent episode right before Futurama a couple weeks ago--I didn't really laugh hard once, or chuckle much at all, except for one scene that showed the birth of Dale's son, but even that was just an extension of a joke from the very first episode.

Yeah, and it produces a great number more quotable lines than any other show on right now. Random humor like "For my next miracle, I'm gonna turn this water...into FUNK!" comes completely out of nowhere but is still creative, though it probably pissed off a bunch of overt Christians as usual.

Jay's boss was such a self-centered billionare hillbilly that he couldn't help but be funny--like that one time where he said that he always anonymously donated to charities, but then Doris points out a nearby hospital with a huge golden statue of Duke in front of it going "ALL HAIL DUKE! DUKE IS LIFE!" Hilarious stuff.

Rich Bunnell replied...

I felt that Jay Sherman and his son came across as belivable and very likable characters. The non-stop bombardment of outrageous gags never hindered that. The Critic had both heart and hilarity.