Now I'm a huge Family Guy detractor. I find it lazy animation and a great example of how one popular show can poison everything around it.
And...
And of course....
Genius.
Once Family Guy found huge success (after two cancellations) King of the Hill found itself cancelled and The Simpsons, the animated real life on TV pioneer, suddenly began combating becoming stale with similar cut away jokes and incongruous plots.
But I like Seth MacFarlane and have always had a theory that the current Family Guy format is not where he first imagined the show going. While being a detractor, I've also seen every episode and own seasons 1 through 5 (although I only bought 1 through 3... damn family at Christmas not knowing what I'm into or asking and buying me the same thing every year because "You love Family Man!"). Seasons 1 through 3, while having the cutaway jokes and random humor, still had pretty solid plots and at some points reached some poignant moments. Like the episode where Brian becomes a caretaker for a shut-in and finds the beauty inside her juxtaposed with Peter coming to terms with taking care and letting go of three baby birds nesting in his beard. It's not brilliant but neither were the first two seasons of the Simpsons and like the Simpsons it seemed to be heading to something interesting.
Then Family Guy was cancelled.
Fox has a rule. If a show isn't insanely popular in five minutes, it will be canceled no matter the quality. Ask Firefly for more information on that. But Fox is also fickle and after the first cancellation, they brought Family Guy back to finish their third season moving the show around to random time slots and then eventually putting it up against Survivor and Friends. If anyone remembers the early 2000's and the Survivor craze (is that show still on?), they'll know that Fox basically put a death sentence on Family Guy and, just before the third season, announced it's official cancellation. But, due to high DVD sales, Fox brought back Family Guy in it's current form. It's hard for me to imagine that after two cancellations and Fox shifting the show around like a kid poking at a dead skunk on the side of a hot road, Seth MacFarlane thinking this was a good time to experiment with the format of his first show as they were attempting in the first three seasons. What's the safest thing you can do with a cartoon in primetime? Make sure it appeals to the lowest denominator. Make it funny in a way that both people will remember (thus they'll watch again) and have jokes simple enough for a drunk and stoned twenty-year old to understand (no heavy shit, fart jokes and funny hats please).
If this is what happened (and obviously I'm not MacFarlane's buddy, this is just a theory) then it explains why the show shifted from episodes about Chris trying to bond with his father Peter to episodes that start at Stewie's play and end with Peter being sexually harassed by his boss.
Tonight I watched the 150th episode. You know what? I think I might have been right. In ten years, NEVER have I seen an episode like this come out of Family Guy. No cutaways, the plot didn't bounce around to the easiest joke and it was lovely in places. Almost heart-wrenching.
Stewie and Brian are locked in a bank vault together and spend the episode... mostly talking. There's toilet humor of course but it doesn't stand alone and actually helps build the plot to a climax. Seth MacFarlane has before stated that Brian's character is based at least partially on his own personality (hence why Brian is one the most developed characters on Family Guy) and the dynamic of Stewie and Brian has resulted in the best episodes of the series before. But this episode almost screamed to me "I CAN WRITE!"
Seth MacFarlane has gotten a lot of flack for Family Guy before. Even John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy, has come out of the woodwork for Family Guy's blood stating "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." http://www.cartoonbrew.com/old-brew/the-john-kricfalusi-interview-part-2.html. And of course, everyone's aware of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's opinion (see Cartoon Wars part 1 and 2 if you're lost). But I think this is simply a case of a man seeing where the money is and going for it.
Now I'm talking a lot about Seth Macfarlane as he is the creator therefore the house should come down on him just like with the awful new episodes of Simpsons I still put blame on Matt Groening even though he's barely involved anymore. But the thing is, Seth didn't write Brian and Stewie, the 150th episode holding the most redeeming qualities of the show. That credit goes to Gary Janetti (whose only written two other episodes technically) and Dominic Bianchi the director. I looked up the other episodes they worked on and... didn't find any of the episodes that spoke to me. It looks like the whole FG crew is following the rule of successful animation on Fox. Lowest common denominator. If you're going to be offensive, just be as offensive as you can be. That way, only the Parents Television Council (glorified PTA) and religious nuts will be offended and no one really cares what they think anyway. Seriously. The Parents Television Council? When have we ever needed that? Instead of creating a group to monitor television why don't they just watch their fucking kids?
The point:
Seth Macfarlane is not an asshole who's out to destroy the credibility of animation. He had an idea that he turned into a VERY successful venture. The man, with more than half of the animation on Fox being his creation, is the highest paid writer in television... EVER.
This man.
While that puts a twitch in my eye (loving the Wire and Southpark as I do) I'm also poor and if I had the option he had, even with my rantings and standards, I'd fucking take it too. It's almost a meta joke. If Brian and Stewie becomes a popular episode I think we could see a slow change to form or at least more interesting developments from Seth Macfarlane. Or maybe we'll break even and The Cleveland Show will finally get canceled for the racist poorly written abortion it is.
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