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This came out fairly recently as a “gift” to fans of the show who supported it through its downtime. The fan response to the cartoon sets enabled the show to come back for a fourth season and this was released to those same fans as a little something extra besides the new fourth season episodes.
The Main Characters
The TV shows focuses on the Griffin family. There is Peter, the stupid father who frequently makes references to old TV shows. Lois is the stay at home mother who can get angry to get her way when she needs to. Meg is the outcast daughter who always wears a red cap. Chris is actually denser than his father with a bit of a monkey problem in his room. Stewie is the youngest and the brightest of them all. No one can hear him talk but he hates Lois and seems to want to take over the world. The Griffins wouldn’t be complete without Brian, the talking dog. Everyone can understand Brian but only Brian can understand Stewie. Stewie, Brian and Peter are all voiced by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane while Alex Borstein (of Mad TV fame) voices Lois. Mila Kunis and Seth Green voice Meg and Brian respectively.
The Setting
Quahog, Rhode Island.
The Main Feature (1:28:22)
The feature starts off with an interview with the Family Guy cast who are at the debut of the straight to DVD feature they are starring in. A funny moment shows Stewie breaking the neck of an Entertainment Weekly correspondent after asking if Futurama is coming back on the air. Lois comes in totally drunk as well. Then the main feature starts, but not without some previews (Vince Vaughan and Susan Sarandon in a movie about people who never sleep and a Disney movie about a little bunny and a bear with music by Randy Newman).
The feature starts off in much the same way as the beginning to “Road to Rhode Island.” So the clan is at the pool, and Stewie is scared of the water. Peter then goes to his favorite video store and finds that it has been sold and is now Lackluster video. He can’t get his porno’s there anymore! Tom Tucker comes in and hears Peter’s rant and hires him to be on the news channel as the every man talking about issues. He does, and talks about the lack of new pope / rabbi jokes. Stewie meanwhile tries to kill the star swimmer for showing Stewie up. He ends up almost killing himself and quick trip to hell makes Stewie realize he needs to be a good boy. Peter enjoys a good run on the news program, “What Grinds My Gears,” and Stewie is sickening as a good boy and Brian is getting the worst of it. Peter uses his celebrity to get a table at the hottest restaurant in town kicking Tom out of his seat and his own private booth (the bathroom). Stewie, in his attempt to be a good boy becomes a drunk and dives from a shelf onto his baby chair.
Peter’s gig goes so well Tom Tucker gets jealous and tries to ruin his segment. He does this on camera, and gets fired. Brian is pissed that Stewie is getting drunk and aims to get him so drunk he doesn’t want to drink again. The both of them get drunk and Stewie crashes through the Drunken Clan. Tom Tucker comes back on the show with the exclusive of Stewie and Brian’s car in the bar and Peter is fired. Stewie vows never to drink again, after a night he doesn’t remember and a supposed tryst with Roger Moore. So, the family ends up at an electronic store and Peter buys a TiVo. One day, when Brian and Stewie are watching TV, they see a man who looks astoundingly like Stewie. Stewie vows to go to California to find this man. Stewie doesn’t want to admit that an idiot like Peter could be his father. Luckily, Quagmire is embarking on a cross-country tour to sleep with a woman in every state and he’s heading to California.
So Brian and Stewie hitch a ride with Quagmire to California. Meanwhile, Lois and Peter are annoyed that Meg and Chris are always interrupting their romantic ventures. So Peter and Lois are determined to teach their kids how to date so they can get their own mates and finally leave them alone. So Stewie manages to steal the Winnebago from Quagmire and they are off on their own. Stewie crashes the van, of course, and even though they are in the middle of the dessert. They eventually get to San Francisco and Stewie finds his dad, but he eludes him. Luckily, he manages to grab a seat on the trolley next to his father. It’s not his father, but Stewie!
They actually have an intermission and we return to hear Stewie tell Stewie that he is him from the future. See, in the future, you take trips to the past instead of locations. So old Stewie goes back home to the future and young Stewie hitches a ride. So Stewie is a veritable loser now, Lois and Peter are old, Brian is a cop and married to a real filthy, cursing bitch (Vanessa), who wants to put the parents in a nursing home and Meg got a sex change. Brian is dead, too. Stewie is shocked to learn that his 35-year-old counterpart is still a virgin who works at Circuit Shack. Stewie is shocked and overhauls his older counterpart’s life, reinventing his apartment and trying to get him laid. So Old Stewie has sex with his co-worker, it is embarrassingly short and he gets fired for intra-office sex. He goes home and his apartment has burned down. Lovely.
So Peter and Lois go to the retirement home and see Cleveland who talks very slowly, Quagmire who has arthritis and Joe, who is not in a wheelchair and actually has Bonnie’s leg’s now. So the Stewie’s are talking and older Stewie talks about his near-death experience at the pool causing his whole life to go to the crapper. The Stewie’s go to Lois and borrow some money for a trip back to the past. Stewie goes to the past and kills Brian’s wife, then arrives in the past minutes before the event and runs to the pool a la Ferris Beuller. Stewie luckily saves the day, and prevents his near-death experience. The movie ends and we go to the wrap-up party where the movie gets horrible reviews from the fans. We also learn what the family did while the show was off the air.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) Commentary
Seth MacFarlane, cast and writers, does the commentary. The other people are: Chris Sheridan, Danny Goodman, and Pete Michaels. Seth says this is the second attempt at the commentary since the last was done with, “100 people in the room and liquor.” They talk a lot about the build up in the first part, and mention some scenes that won’t make it into the TV show. As part 2 starts, Alex Borstein and Seth Green join in on the fun. Alex and Seth are very funny and they liven the whole commentary immediately. They talk about how Alex has a very dirty mind and Seth Green makes a pretty funny joke about Alex being in a porno called Deep Space Nine but the nine has the inches on it. Seth talks about his voice for Brian, coming from an impersonation of the Buffalo Bill voice from Silence of the Lambs. Seth M. says that a lot of people came in to audition for Brian and would do surfer dude voices. So Seth won the part by being original. They chat about a lot of other things and it is pretty interesting. The third episode begins and Seth Green and Alex leave and we are now joined by Mila Kunis and Steve Callaghan join us. They are pretty funny as well. I won’t recap the whole thing but as a whole the commentary was very enjoyable. They were lively and chatting the whole time and there really wasn’t a dull moment.
2) Animatic Comparison
---A) Red Carpet Ceremony (4:51)
---B) Road Trip / Dating Education (5:10)
Both of these are animatics of the above scenes. Basically, it is storyboarded versions of what would lead to the final version. Storyboards, for those who don’t know, are basically like comic strips or panels that outline every scene and show what it will look like. They are fun to look at if only to see how the animation evolves from storyboard form to the final version.
3) Family Guy Volume Three Preview (:25)
This is a 30 second commercial for Volume 3 which is coming onto DVD, and as I write this is already out and furthermore, already in my DVD collection.
4) American Dad Preview (:54)
Rather than being a 30 second commercial, this is a minute long commercial for the show coming to DVD and as I write this is NOT out yet.
5) Uncensored Main Film
Ok, so instead of the bleeps, you can hear all the cusses. A lot of the cursing is obligatory and doesn’t really add to the comedy. The bulk of the naughty language comes at the beginning and ending of the film. It should be noted that these parts were made after the fact and the cursing was probably added in knowing it would be released on a DVD and in unrated form.
B) Audio/Video
The audio is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Surround and the video is shown in fullscreen 1.33:1. There is also a Spanish Surround track and a French Stereo track. The video is alright. It’s much brighter and cleaner than network television, so the animation does tend to get fuzzy or blurry at times (at least when looking up close on my laptop DVD player) and that definitely could’ve been cleaned up a bit.
C) Liner Notes
There are a couple of leaflets included in here. One has an ad for Volume 3 of Family Guy, coming in November of 2005 with the chapter listings on the back. There is also an 8-page booklet with Family Guy merchandise. There is also a leaflet promoting Robots, and the usual Fox TV DVD booklet. The DVD also comes with a Stewie Griffin slipcover.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
Wow, the DVD actually starts off with a PSA against downloading movies since it is stealing. So, this is really only for Family Guy fans, to be honest. If you’re a new fan trying to springboard onto the series, this isn’t it. It is just a gift for the fans. It seems to be a series of three episodes that are semi-serial in nature. The episodes are typical of Family Guy. A paper-thin plot surrounded by one-liners and pop-culture references in flashback form. I found a lot of it hilarious (especially Stewie’s Ferris Bueller run) but casual fans and people who haven’t watched it will probably find the episode runs way too long and most can only take so many flashbacks. Still, true Family Guy fans will enjoy this. It does have a pretty interesting idea with Stewie meeting his future self and it does bring the funny. The scenes at the beginning and end of the feature were hilarious as well. Overall, the movie would probably grade a B+ overall. The extras are bare-thin with what amounts to two very short commercials and 10 minutes of animatics. The commentary is very good but seeing as these episodes will eventually air on TV and other than that there are about 20 minutes of material that is exclusive to this disc. For the hardcore fans they don’t need a recommendation, they already have it. For those casual fans I say wait for it to be on TV.
Overall Rating
5.5
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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