Family Guy - "Love, Blactually" - Talkback [9/28]

[warnerbroman]

I agree with Lemming anyway. Politically, Seth's become a....word you can't say on Toon Zone that sounds kind of like "moose." Dem to find that funny by itself.

goose?

 

[Annie-Mae]

Being a die-hard liberal myself I find it refreshing to hear some left wing views on certain subjects and mockery of conservative views...but Family Guy has become over kill on the subject almost fueling the hate that religious right wing crazy people have for even the moderate of liberals. Brian as an atheist is not a big deal to me but 1) men say things to get a girl to like them 2) not all atheists are that anti-god and it's just running on stereotypes. A lot of this ep was just all in bad taist.

Then going to watch American Dad I enjoyed that ep more then FG. It's hard to me belive that Seth really writes anything for FG anymore, seeing how AD has more thought put into it then FG has had in a long time. Sure he does the voices and has to aproove of this stuff, but there is a quality in the 1st 3 seasons that are gone totally in the 6th (4th and 5th were good but trickling down as he was working on AD). Plus I think Fox encourages a lot of this, they could step up and put in some quality control (outside of cencoring the sex, swears, and violance) but if what's the kids like and it sells DVDs then what's the point.

 

[PositronShooter]

I'm a liberal myself, but this show's liberalism is starting to get on my nerves.

Also, how can anyone be an atheist on this show when God and Jesus have already made themselves present on more than one occasion? Or is it just the "believers" who notice them?

This was a boring episode. They were going to show this back in March, but then decided to take a six week break, only for the returning episodes to be worse. Never did I buy into the excuse that the writers' strike screwed them up. Family Guy is suffering, because people are making it okay to write CRAP.

Brian's constant failures with dating had some potential (except I can't figure out why he doesn't just find a DOG to go out with, if it's the humans that are letting him down). But in what was probably a stepping stone for the upcoming Cleveland Show, almost every joke dropped like dead flies. Somehow, FG is no good at making 4th wall jokes. There were only one or two cutaways that were actually funny. (Is it wrong to laugh when the word "Jew" is used as an insult? )

Regardless, this is going to be another long and terrible season.

 

[warnerbroman]

I'm a liberal myself, but this show's liberalism is starting to get on my nerves.

Also, how can anyone be an atheist on this show when God and Jesus have already made themselves present on more than one occasion? Or is it just the "believers" who notice them?

jesus is real just not a ninja/wizard and just cuz he has powers and has the name doe not mean he is the god kinda like Zuse was "god"

 

[Tash]

jesus is real just not a ninja/wizard and just cuz he has powers and has the name doe not mean he is the god kinda like Zuse was "god"

Haven't we actually seen god on a few occasions? (or was that only in cutaways?)

 

[Tobias]

Well, in next week's episode

Spoiler

Peter finds Jesus working in a record store and tries to convince him to go public

, so that should settle any and all arguments on this topic then.

 

[warnerbroman]

we also see posiden and vishnew(sp)

Haven't we actually seen god on a few occasions? (or was that only in cutaways?)

 

[Silverstar]

Brian's constant failures with dating had some potential (except I can't figure out why he doesn't just find a DOG to go out with, if it's the humans that are letting him down).

I'm not one of those "Family Guy sucks" people, and I try not to nitpick, but one FG shtick that I'd really like to see laid to rest is the recurring motif of Brian dating human women. Whenever I read a synopsis that starts with "Brian dates a woman who...", I groan and roll my eyes. I realize it's just a cartoon, but come on. I guess I can see why Brian doesn't seem to be interested in forging relationships with other dogs (the exception being "Screwed the Pooch"), since most of the other animals on FG don't possess his intelligence (except for the occasional cutaway), but you really have to wonder about these ladies; why are so many human women willing to date a dog? I guess the joke is supposed to be that Brian always strikes out because he's too liberal or too sensitive, not because he's a flipping dog. I can carry a suspension of disbelief, but only so far; if Brian's going to continually attempt to mate with humans, then he should stop being considered a pet on the show, just a single guy living in the Griffins' house. Giving Brian a human son and an ex-lover while he still eats from the garbage is just plain weird, even by animation standards. JMPO, though.

 

[SirLemming]

What we're seeing here is the Rule of Funny at work. If the episode were funnier, we probably wouldn't even be talking about stuff like whether or not it makes sense for Brian to date humans. I don't think that's the kind of stuff that makes the difference between a good episode and a bad episode, but when it's a bad episode you notice stuff like that.

 

[tb4000]

What we're seeing here is the Rule of Funny at work. If the episode were funnier, we probably wouldn't even be talking about stuff like whether or not it makes sense for Brian to date humans. I don't think that's the kind of stuff that makes the difference between a good episode and a bad episode, but when it's a bad episode you notice stuff like that.

Like Brian said in the unknown son ep. "you don't like it, go on the internet and complain." I'm sure there's a tv trope for that type of attitude a lot of animation shows have as of late...if it don't make sense, we just dismiss it.

 

[Mek]

IMHO, South Park is a good example of political humor in the sense that it offends everyone.

And "Family Guy" is not.

 

[Juu-kuchi]

People have said that American Dad has a bit more respect than Family Guy when it comes to showing political leanings and not making the opposing side a bunch of strawmen.

Yet why does that not happen in American Dad but in Family Guy? Why does Seth and his writers desire for more multidimensional counterpoints in AD than he does with the FG writers, essentially letting them have free reign on just these ridiculous shills of sorts.

On a side note, I ran into some atheist forum (don't ask, I just like observing contrarian viewpoints) talking about how the God Delusion was shown on TV and I saw about two pages worth of people praising McFarlane for preaching the truth and shilling the God Delusion, completely overemphasizing its existence on the show than the actual quality of it.

 

[SirLemming]

On a side note, I ran into some atheist forum (don't ask, I just like observing contrarian viewpoints) talking about how the God Delusion was shown on TV and I saw about two pages worth of people praising McFarlane for preaching the truth and shilling the God Delusion, completely overemphasizing its existence on the show than the actual quality of it.

Every group thinks they're a minority.

I imagine South Park's "Go God Go" would be considered something akin to the Holocaust for them.

 

[Hurricane V1]

Man this episode was awful. But maybe there's hope. I didn't realize this episode was created during last season. Maybe the rest of the season will be some real winners. The previews synopses sound funny enough already.

 

[danreyes1]

Wow. That had to be the most offensive first five minutes in any show in history. I'm not easily offended, but the domestic abuse joke was pushing it. The "Laura Bush killed a guy" joke was just... awkward. Thankfully the rest of the episode was enjoyable enough. I found the Carolyn and Cleveland have sex everywhere running gag funny. I always found Loretta to be kind of annoying, so I'm glad she didn't return.

In the end, an average episode.

 

[Daffyfan2003]

Well, keep in mind Brian's quote in 'If I'm Dyin' I'm Lyin.' He said, 'God... Is... Pi$$ed.' In all honesty I really don't care for that statement, using a swear word and God in the same context. Mama/Vicky Lawrence did that once as well. But anyway, would Brian really have been able to say that God was pi$$ed if he didn't believe in God?

 

[SirLemming]

Well, keep in mind Brian's quote in 'If I'm Dyin' I'm Lyin.' He said, 'God... Is... Pi$$ed.' In all honesty I really don't care for that statement, using a swear word and God in the same context. Mama/Vicky Lawrence did that once as well. But anyway, would Brian really have been able to say that God was pi$$ed if he didn't believe in God?

While I don't think that's a big deal, I do sort of wonder if making one's characters conform to one's belief system is always a good idea. Scenes like the above demonstrate the storyline versatility that can come from defining one's characters a bit more vaguely. It's more of a challenge to write for characters who aren't exactly like you, and challenge often yields better results.

 

[Neo-Era]

Every group thinks they're a minority.

I imagine South Park's "Go God Go" would be considered something akin to the Holocaust for them.

Speaking of strawmen, this is a good example right here.

 

[SirLemming]

Umm... okay then.

 

[warnerbroman]

...right

Umm... okay then.

...right