(detailed information about this entry from Wikipedia)
Family Guy is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for FOX in 1999. The show was cancelled in 2002, but positive response to the show's release on DVD and reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim led FOX to resume production of the show in 2005 (see "Return to television" below). To date it is one of only a handful of shows in television history to be cancelled and later revived by the power of their fan bases, and one of the few shows to be brought back to air by the same network that cancelled it (see Cagney and Lacey, Doctor Who).
The title character is Peter Griffin, an inept blue-collar worker head of a middle class family frequently beset by the consequences of his foolish antics. Family Guy's brand of humor is notable for the usually brief, frequently nonsensical cutaways (usually featuring oddball pop culture references) and flashbacks to various points in history, geography, and reality involving the characters and their ludicrous actions (see "Structure and comedic approach" below).
MacFarlane also serves as a writer on the show, and voices many of the characters (Peter, Brian, Stewie, Glen Quagmire, Tom Tucker, and some others). Other voice actors include That '70s Show star Mila Kunis (Meg)*, actor Seth Green (Chris), former MADtv star Alex Borstein (Lois, Trisha Takinawa, and cameo of Bunny Swan), Writer/Producer Mike Henry (Cleveland, Cleveland Jr., Herbert, and Greased-up Deaf Guy), and comedic character actor Patrick Warburton (Joe Swanson).
- Lacey Chabert was originally cast as the voice of Meg on Family Guy. She was never credited for this part however because she left the show in the first season.Neoseeker
Characters
The Griffin Family, from left to right: Chris, Peter, Brian, Stewie, Lois, Meg.
- Main article: List of characters from Family Guy
The show revolves around the adventures of Peter Griffin, a bumbling but well-intentioned blue-collar worker.
Peter is Irish-American. His wife, Lois, a stay-at-home mommy and piano teacher, is a member of the Pewterschmidts, a wealthy socialite family. Peter and Lois have three children: daughter Meg Griffin, who is frequently the butt of jokes for her apparent ugliness; teenage Chris Griffin, in many respects a younger version of his father; and a diabolically evil infant son, Stewie Griffin bent on world domination and the death of Lois. The family lives with an intellectual talking dog, Brian Griffin, who has repeatedly expressed romantic interest in Lois. Even though Brian has been completely anthropomorphized by the show's creators (he walks on two legs, drinks martinis, owns his own car, and engages in normal conversation with the Griffins), the Griffins still consider him a pet in many respects. Occasionally, Brian will act in a stereotypically canine matter, usually for comedic effect (such as his inability to stand up in the back of a car, his needs to chomp at the air coming from a blow-drier, to scratch his buttocks on the carpet, to chase a tennis ball, or his fear of the vacuum), but he objects to any overly submissive domestic behavior.
Other recurring characters include the Griffin family's colorful neighbors—paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson, his perpetually pregnant wife Bonnie, and their teenage son Kevin, who habitually walks home from school with Meg; sex-crazed, sex machine airline-pilot bachelor Glen Quagmire. Glen also is in love with Lois (and just about anyone or anything else female), and when he is enticed by the idea of women exclaims, "Giggity-Giggity", and, "Alright!" Mild-mannered deli owner Cleveland Brown, his wife (ex-wife as of the fourth-season episode The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire) Loretta and their hyperactive son, Cleveland Jr. (who hasn't appeared again since Season 3); news anchors Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons; and the mayor, Adam West, modeled after and voiced by the actor of Batman fame, who is portrayed as paranoid and mentally ill—as well as other various co-workers and town personalities.
Family Guy does not have an especially large cast of recurring minor characters (though this has changed to an extent in Season 4, with many one-shot characters from prior episodes making appearances in new episodes) and most of the episode plotlines center chiefly around the exploits of the Griffin family.
There are also several semi-regular characters whose appearances basically tell the same joke over and over. Examples include the Evil Monkey in Chris's closet; Herbert, the creepy old man who enjoys "watching" Chris; the Greased-Up Deaf Guy; and the Giant Chicken who originally poked fun at a burger king commercial, Peter's nemesis, whose fights with Peter, which parody Hollywood action films, usually end up causing huge amounts of damage to the city. The incarnation of Death (originally voiced by Norm MacDonald, but now by Adam Carolla) has also made a number of appearances.
Structure and comedic approach
The characters live and work in Quahog, Rhode Island (IPA: ['kəʊhɑg]), a hyperrealistic and intensely satirical version of a small Rhode Island town. A "quahog" is in fact a type of hard shell clam and doubles as a regional slang term for "vagina", much like the word "clam." Characters' lives largely revolve around items and ideas of popular culture, which are incorporated into everyday conversation and events. Some of these references have exaggerated grounding in reality — a paranoid and psychotic version of actor Adam West serves as Quahog's mayor, and public schools are named for Rhode Island natives James Woods and Buddy Cianci — while others unabashedly delve into the realm of fantasy without being questioned. Every episode features at least a celebrity name and other pop culture-related things.
Although Family Guy sometimes maintains a rough sense of continuity, complicated plots are most often traded for a concentration on comedy that is based largely on pop culture references and non-sequiturs. Though this style is often played within the characters' world, the series is also known for its use of cutaways, where the plot is interrupted and segues into unrelated, self-contained sketches — known as "gags" — of variable length. Often initiated when a character refers to a past event (accompanied by phrases such as "like that time when...", "I haven't felt like this since...", or "This is worse than the time..."), these sketches are wildly divergent in topic—ranging from classic film scenes to historical events to contemporary television commercials — though many times they encapsulate twisted, humorous takes on reality, and sometimes they are completely nonsensical, such as Peter's being a magic mirror for Kevin Federline or using his bulk to provide nighttime warmth for Lara Flynn Boyle.
The show owes a great deal of its comedic inspiration to the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker's Naked Gun/Police Squad! series (spoof, parody and screwball), whose structural comedic approach has been homaged by Family Guy. Slapstick gags, deadpan one-liners, non sequiturs, flashbacks, absurdity, and mainly parody on pop culture have been an influence on Family Guy. Family Guy finally parodied this ultimate parody movie in the fourth-season episode called PTV. Some have also noted that many jokes on the show and the pacing seem like an updated version of the British sitcom The Young Ones[citation needed].
Though earlier animated series (such as The Critic) experimented with this style, few before Family Guy wandered the line between reality and fantasy with such aggression. Indeed, the use of this style has been parodied by the show itself; an entire episode was revealed to have been a dream concocted by Pam Ewing, a character from the television series Dallas, which retconned an entire season to the same conceit.
Because of this approach, the series reverts to normality by the end of most episodes, and occurrences in past episodes are sometimes ignored. Some changes back to normality are accomplished by tortuous or unlikely means, while others are tacitly implied. The episode He's Too Sexy for His Fat offers examples of each: Peter's extensive liposuction and cosmetic surgery is reverted by having Peter have a car accident and land in a lard factory, where he consumes a whole vat of lard. In the episode The Perfect Castaway, Peter is seen eating Joe's legs for food while Peter, Joe, Cleveland and Quagmire are stranded on Quagmire's raft of blow-up dolls in the middle of the ocean. Joe is seen without legs until the end of the episode, and when questioned as to how he got them back, he says he received them from an inmate on death row about to get the chair. Unfortunately for Joe, the man was also a paraplegic. In one episode, Brian has shards of glass embedded in his head, is beaten repeatedly with a towel bar, shot through both knees, and is roasted by a flamethrower, but returns to a perfectly healthy state afterwards - this could be compared to traditional Warner Brother's cartoon style humor [1].
But there are also cases of episodes making changes to continuity that are upheld and even elaborated on in later episodes, such as Peter's occupation being shifted from a toy factory assembly line worker to a fisherman, to a lowly worker at a beer factory; the breakup and subsequent divorce of secondary characters Cleveland and Loretta Brown; and the recent birth of Peter's son (via sperm donation) and Stewie's new rival, Bertram, to a lesbian couple. In a recent fourth season episode, Brian picked up a rock and hit Peter in the head, telling him that it was revenge for keeping the window rolled up when Brian tried to jump head-first into the family car, which Peter had repainted at the time to resemble the General Lee, an event that took place in the Season 3 episode To Live and Die in Dixie.
Being a native of Kent, Connecticut, and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, MacFarlane has written a number of in-jokes and references into Family Guy which allude to real life places in Rhode Island and the surrounding New England area, including Providence, Pawtucket, Narragansett, Newport, Warwick, Hartford, Natick, Upton, South Attleboro, and Webster. The last scene of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story featured an aerial view of the School.
Criticism and controversy
- Main article: Criticism of Family Guy
Ever since its initial run, Family Guy has received much criticism from a variety of sources. Of particular concern to parent watch groups is the show's adult content and disregard for traditional morality. Critics and peers have criticized the show for the derivative and simplistic nature of its comedy.
Family Guy has been panned by certain television critics, most notably from Entertainment Weekly[2], which was in turn attacked by MacFarlane during a scene in the straight-to-DVD movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. The Parents Television Council has also registered their disapproval of the show, giving it second place on their 2000[3] and 2005[4] lists of "worst prime-time shows for family viewing."
In addition to TV critics and political groups, those who have publicly criticized Family Guy include quite a few fellow cartoonists. Criticism was offered by John Kricfalusi, the mind behind Ren and Stimpy, who complained that, "If you're a kid wanting to be a cartoonist today, and you're looking at Family Guy, you don't have to aim very high. You can draw Family Guy when you're ten years old. You don't have to get any better than that to become a professional cartoonist. The standards are extremely low."[5] The show has also been roasted in an episode of South Park, in which characters called the show's jokes interchangeable, saying that they had no place in the storyline[6].
Similarity to The Simpsons
The writers of The Simpsons have frequently included jokes in their show that suggest they feel that Family Guy plagiarizes their own program (for example in Send In The Clones, from Treehouse of Horror XIII, one of Homer's clones is Peter Griffin). In the Family Guy episode PTV, Homer Simpson appears in the opening credits, almost as if it was in fact an episode of The Simpsons. The similarities between these two highly popular animation comedies has been noticed by many viewers and has been well-documented in the media. Peter Griffin is perceived as similar to Homer Simpson because they both are overweight, incompetent, and occasionally have marital problems because they do little to assist in the day-to-day running of the house. Some of these similarities may be due to both shows' ongoing homage to The Flintstones, acknowledged by both shows' creators as the forerunner for prime time cartoon comedies.
The composition of the Griffin family is nearly identical to that of the Simpsons (the only difference being that the baby Griffin is male whereas the baby Simpson is female). Marge and Lois both get little help from their spouses around the house, but are clearly the most competent members of their respective families. Of course, the nuclear family is a sitcom staple, as are boorish father/husband figures, and the children in the Griffin family are vastly different in terms of personality from their Simpsons counterparts. However these archetypes have been used in dozens of sitcoms before and after The Simpsons.
In the Family Guy episode Peterotica, the show aimed yet another volley toward The Simpsons, when Peter commented on how they used to be a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show, where the Simpsons first appeared. This is followed by a poorly-animated Griffin family who don't quite look or sound like the characters as they usually appear, paralleling the early Simpson family.
In an April 2006 interview with The Onion's AV Club, Simpsons creator Matt Groening calls the rivalry between his show and Family Guy "very affectionate" and compares the situation to the one that existed between The Addams Family and The Munsters. He has complimentary words for MacFarlane, calling him a "good guy" who does "great work."
In The Simpsons episode The Italian Bob, when one of the Italian policemen searches through the book of American criminals, Peter is shown as one of the criminals, and his picture is captioned "Plagiarismo." Stan Smith from American Dad is shown next, captioned "Plagiarismo di Plagiarismo."
Episodes
- Main article: List of Family Guy episodes
In keeping with the humorous tone of the series, most episode titles of Family Guy are parodies of popular television shows, movies, and mottos. No media product or cultural norm is immune from parody on this show.
For the first half of the first season, the writers tried to work the words "murder" or "death" into the title of every episode (i.e., Mind over Murder and Death Has a Shadow) to make the titles resemble those of old-fashioned radio mystery shows. On a DVD commentary, creator Seth MacFarlane says that the writers stopped doing this when they realized they were beginning to get the titles confused and couldn't remember which title went with which episode.
DVD film
- Main article: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
The first film, released to DVD on September 27, 2005, focuses on Stewie searching for his biological father, who isn't Peter Griffin. Three separate but continuous episodes, originally intended for the fourth season, were combined into a full-length film. A one-minute scene from the movie can currently be viewed here.
Theme Song
Composed by Walter Murphy, the familiar theme music of the show begins as a parody of the opening theme of All in the Family, where Peter and Lois sing at the family piano, similar to Archie and Edith Bunker.
There has been some confusion over Stewie's solo line of "laugh and cry." Because it immediately follows a music sting, "laugh and cry" has been mistaken for "effin cry" by both viewers and closed-captioning transcribers. Although a clearer recording of the line was featured during the third season, MacFarlane maintains the lyric has always been "laugh and cry." Nevertheless, rumors flew during its ambiguity claiming that "effin and cry" and "laugh and cry" were used interchangeably.
In keeping with the series's malleable comedy, the traditional opening song has been occasionally dropped in favor of different themes, including parodies of Law & Order, Family Ties, Police Squad!/The Naked Gun, The Simpsons and the Hope-Crosby Road movies.
History
Creation
- Main article: Larry shorts
Family Guy originates back to two shorts of around ten minutes each made by Seth MacFarlane during the mid-1990s, featuring two main characters: Larry, a fat, old, balding man who did idiotic things, and Steve, a talking dog who was smarter than most people. The second of these shorts was broadcast on Cartoon Network in 1997.
Executives at Fox saw both shorts, and MacFarlane was offered the opportunity to develop a show based on them, which evolved into Family Guy.
Initial run
The first episode was aired in the United States on the Fox Broadcasting Company on January 31, 1999, after Super Bowl XXXIII. The show premiered as a regular series in April and ran for six more episodes until the season finale in the middle of May. The first season contained seven episodes and introduced the viewer to the show's main characters. The second season began on September 23, 1999, and contained 21 episodes. The third season contained 22 episodes and began its run on July 11, 2001. During its second and third-season runs, Fox frequently moved the show around different days and time slots with little or no notice. Ratings suffered, and after only two episodes of the second season, Family Guy was taken off the network's permanent schedule and was shown irregularly thereafter.
When Family Guy was shown in the UK, and when the DVDs were subsequently released there (November 12, 2001), the first seven episodes of the second season were included with the first season, balancing them out with 14 episodes each.
There was a great deal of debate and rumor during the second and third seasons about whether Family Guy would be cancelled or renewed. Fox publicly announced that the show had been cancelled at the end of the second season. In an attempt to convince Fox to renew the show, dismayed fans created websites, signed petitions, and wrote letters; some even sent diapers and baby food to the network for Stewie.
A shift in power at Fox resulted in thirteen new episodes being ordered, which formed the basis of the third season. The show's writers, aware of the uncertainty of the show's future, referenced it in several episodes. During the third season, Fox announced that the show was cancelled for good.
Revival efforts
The news of Fox's cancellation in the third season was met with dismay by fans, and renewed efforts were made to convince Fox to resurrect the show. An online petition was launched, which garnered over 10,000 signatures within a few weeks. The petition gained over 100,000 signatures total, but this along with mass e-mailing and letter writing to Fox executives and organized street protests failed to save Family Guy. Later efforts to get other networks, particularly UPN, to buy Family Guy also failed.
Return to television
In 2003, reruns of the series found a permanent home at Cartoon Network and its late-night Adult Swim block, where, as of 2006, it continues to play. According to a Cartoon Network press release, "FAMILY GUY ranks #1 in its time period on cable among Adults and Men 18–24, and also beats both The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in head-to-head competition among Men 18–34 and Men 18–24." (This was only an occasional ratings outcome[1].)
The series found further success on DVD, when it was finally released for the US market (NTSC, Region 1) on April 15, 2003. Divided into two volumes, Family Guy sold 2.2 million DVD units in the first year[2], reportedly surpassing every other TV-based DVD released in 2003, including Sex and the City and Friends compilations. The significant Cartoon Network ratings, combined with the unprecedented DVD sales, led to widespread rumors that Fox was in talks to revive the series.
On November 19, 2003, the E! Entertainment Television channel and its website (see below) reported that Fox was negotiating with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane to revive the show with 35 new episodes. On February 27, 2004, in an interview with IGN, Seth MacFarlane confirmed that Family Guy would resume production. MacFarlane provided even more information in a BBC interview. (see IGN interview, BBC interview)
On March 26, 2004, Fox television officially announced that it had committed to producing at least 22 more episodes of Family Guy to be rebroadcast on Adult Swim in early 2005. The Fox Network has retained a window to run these episodes, starting on May 1, 2005. Seth MacFarlane was quoted as saying, "I'm just incredibly excited that we're back in business on Family Guy. Now all those crazy kids who've been hounding me to bring the show back can stop bothering me and move onto more serious matters—like saving Coupling."
The fourth-season premiere of Family Guy took place on Sunday, May 1, 2005, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Fox, and immediately poked fun at the situation by listing all of the Fox shows that would have to fail (and did) before 'Family Guy' would be able to return.
One aspect that has helped the show's current success is its placement on Sunday night with the other Fox animated programs. Reruns of the fourth season began play during Adult Swim on June 9, 2005.
Furthermore, a Family Guy direct-to-DVD movie, titled Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, which was a collection of three Family Guy episodes strung together in one collected plot with additional added scenes, was released on September 27, 2005 (see [7]). The 87-minute film is unrated and includes commentary, deleted material, and other bonus features.
A Family Guy video game is currently in production under the Take-Two Interactive banner, and will be developed by High Voltage Software. Playable characters include Peter, Brian, and Stewie. The game is slated for a 2006 release on the Game Boy Advance, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. [8] [9].
On September 27, 2005, Variety reported that 20th Century Fox green lighted production of 22 additional all new episodes of Family Guy, (see [10]).
The fourth season of Family Guy has just recently been released in the UK
International syndication
- In the United Kingdom, BBC Two started showing Season 3 in September 2005 along with American Dad!. The fourth season of Family Guy was released on DVD on April 24, 2006 in the UK. New episodes of the programme are shown on the Fox channel, FX.
- In Australia, the show has made its long awaited return, airing Thursday nights on the Seven Network during the summer non-ratings period. This was shifted to a later timeslot on the resumption of the ratings year. It is also shown 6 days a week on The Comedy Channel and FOX8, which is broadcast on the cable networks Foxtel and Austar.
- In Canada, it is shown on the Global Television Network, often simultaneously with the Fox telecasts across the border. Also, Teletoon shows edited reruns of the series. Reruns of the first three seasons are also presented in dubbed French version on Télétoon French language network.
- In Germany a dubbed version of the show is emitted on Pro7 Thursdays at 00:45 CET (at the moment Season 3)
- Swedish viewers can watch reruns of the show Sundays at 20:00 CET on TV6. Family Guy is also shown Fridays on TV3 around 19:00 CET.
- In Flanders (Belgium) the show has always been broadcast by Kanaal Twee, although with lengthy interruptions. The fourth season hasn't been shown yet. Episodes are never dubbed, they are subtitled in Dutch instead (as with most animated shows in Flanders).
- In Norway the show is sent on ZTV weekdays at 18:30. It was also shown on TV2, but was taken off after a few episodes.
- In Latin America the show is broadcasted by FOX Latinoamerica on Mondays and Tuesdays at midnight.
- In the Middle East the show runs on the free-to-air emarati satellite channel One TV. It can be received through Arabsat or Nilesat.
- Israel Israeli viewers can receive the show via yes sat. television.
- In Ireland, viewers can watch it on Channel 6, or the UK channels BBC Two and FX.
- In Spain, viewers can watch the last season on the FOX Channel and the new free-to-air channel La Sexta has just started to broadcast the first season.
- In Kuwait. KTV 2 showed the 1&2 seasons.
- In UAE, One TV shows an episode every Thursday.
- In New Zealand, TV3 shows new episodes on Saturday, and repeats weeknights at 7pm on C4 (TV3's sister channel).
Podcast
A free podcast is available to download as an MP3 from the official site. Seventeen episodes have been released for it. On several of the podcasts, cast members discuss upcoming episodes.
Accolades
Family Guy is currently the number one television show listed on student profiles on Facebook.
See also
References
- ^ Battaglio, Stephen. "The Second Life of Brian". TV Guide. May 1-7, 2005.
- ^ Netherby, Jennifer. "DVD keeps Family alive". Video Business. March 29, 2004.
External links
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Family Guy (1999) 
Family Guy (1999) [TV series]
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