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Family Guy is a show that I unfortunately missed the first time around on TV. Not for any reason except I usually don’t watch TV. I kept hearing about it and when it came on Cartoon Network, I started watching it, and I got hooked. The show was nothing like I’d ever seen. It was smarter and funnier than almost any show I’ve ever seen, cartoon or otherwise. It had fresh jokes, didn’t care about political correctness and had tons of flashback scenes per episode that didn’t make any sense, but were hilarious. It was everything the Simpsons was in its early years. Nothing is sacred on this show, and it manages to make fun of everyone and everything. And it’s all hilarious.
The Main Characters
The show takes a look at the Griffin Family. There is Peter, the stupid father who says what he thinks, without thinking about what he’s saying. Lois is his wife, who stays with Peter despite his failings, but can get pissed at him, and she does, often. Chris and Meg are their two children. Chris is a rather dumb 13 years old, while Meg is usually just there, though she seems to hate her family. The youngest child is Stewie, a mere baby with a mind of his own, and who only wants to kill Lois. To round out the family, there is Brian, the talking dog who is smarter than everyone else in the family. The family can all talk to Brian, but no one can hear Stewie except for Brian. That’s about it; Peter does have 2 (later 3) other friends, Quagmire, the ladies man, and Cleveland, the token black man.
The Setting
Quahog, Rhode Island
The Plots
The first season had only 7 episodes while season 2 had 21 episodes. I’ll include a disc by disc synopsis of each episode, which is a daunting task since most of the episodes contain flashback scenes with no real impact on the story, and seeing how much they can rip off other trademarks without getting sued.
---Disc One---
1) Death Has a Shadow
The first four episodes of season 1 had generic mystery movie titles, but that format would later change. This episode introduces us to the whole family pretty well. Peter is going to a stag party and promises Lois he wouldn’t drink, but when the porno movie he brings is taped over, he must drink in order for the Statue of Liberty to look hot. He gets drunk and ends up asleep on the table, then goes to work. He falls asleep on the job and allows some dangerous toys to pass through the production line and he ends up getting fired. He decides to go on welfare and ends up getting $150,000 a week from the government. He plays this off to his wife as getting a big raise but when she gets upset, he is forced to give the money back which he does, by dumping it on the field during the Super Bowl, and he ends up getting arrested. He has to go to court and is about to be sentenced when Stewie saves the day with the gun he built.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: (tie) Kool-Aid Man and Aunt Jemima. Aunt Jemima appears very early in the episode when Peter says all the have to worry about are Jemima’s Witnesses as a black woman with pancakes pops up in the window. When Peter is sentenced to 2 years in prison, everyone says oh no, then Kool-Aid man breaks through the wall and says Oh Yeah, then sheepishly walks out as everyone stares at him.
2) I Never Met The Dead Man
Meg needs to learn how to drive for her road test. Lois can’t because she has a piano lesson, so Peter has to rip himself away from television, and Star Trek (holy crap, Uhuru’s black?), and Peter teaches her his way to drive. His way. He tells her that when she’s riding next to someone, and they make eye contact, they have to race. So Meg ends up racing an Amish man whose wagon and horse veer off the side of the road into a ditch and explode. Meg takes her driving lesson and does end up racing the person next to her, a policeman. She fails the test and Peter has to race home in order to watch the new Fox reality show, Slow Children and Fast Animals. He ends up crashing into the satellite cable and knocking TV off for everyone. He blames Meg so he doesn’t have to take the fall. Peter starts going crazy without TV and Meg eventually tells everyone it’s Peter’s fault. Peter then starts spending more time with his family until they get sick of him and he goes to a German festival without his family and with William Shatner. Meg ends up crashing into Peter and William when she’s trying to drive in the rain that Stewie made to kill the broccoli, and she ends up killing William and Peter is bed ridden at the hospital, where he watches TV and turns back into the Peter everyone knows and loves.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: Tough one on this episode, but I have to go with the Raisin Bran Sun. Peter wakes up and asks how the sun is doing and he says he’s good with two scoops of raisins, and drops it down, landing on houses and squashing a car.
3) Chitty Chitty Bang Death
This is a fairly straight-forward episode. Meg wants to make new friends and does end up making a new friend who wants to bring her to a party. That party happens to be on the same day as Stewie’s first birthday. It was going to be at Charlie Cheese’s but Peter refuses to give in his balance when the manager interrupts Peter fighting with a young kid over his Dukes of Hazard watch. Peter has to come up with something now that there’s no party for Stewie, and Stewie is getting increasingly paranoid that the man in white is going to put him back in the womb. On the day of the party, Peter manages to bring the circus to his house, and Meg goes to the party with her friend, in a suicide cult. Both plots are resolved in the end, and surprisingly, coincide.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: Gotta go with Peter turning into the Hulk in the story he told to Lois as to why he didn’t put down the deposit at Charlie Cheese’s.
4) Mind Over Murder
So Peter has to take Chris to a soccer game and when a man sitting next to him starts ragging on him, Peter sticks up for his son and punches him out. Turns out, the he was a she, and she was pregnant. Oops. So Peter has to stay in house arrest. He misses the guys and decides that he should build a bar in his basement to get all his friends over. Things go great until Lois starts signing there and Peter gets increasingly jealous. So jealous that he encourages the women whose husbands party there to show up and take them back. They do and a fire erupts when Quagmire throws his cigarette in the garbage. Things look bleak for the Griffins until Stewie turns time backwards with his time machine. You may ask why he has a time machine, and that’s to turn time forward to bypass the teething process, and he wants to turn it back so no one will have seen his time machine plans. So he turns time backwards to before Peter went to the soccer game, and he trips over the time machine, and never goes at all.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: The only one that jumps out on this episode is the Mintos commercial showing John Wilkes Booth trying to shoot Abraham Lincoln.
5) A Hero Sits Next Door
Probably one of the more offensive episodes, seeing how the hero is handicapped and most of the jokes deal with handicapped people. Anyway, Peter is getting ready for the big softball game when he accidentally hits the ringers knee with the softball. His boss makes him find a new ringer or he’s fired. Luckily a new neighbor has moved in and once Peter learns he played college baseball he becomes a lot nicer to him and asks him to be on his team. Well, the day shows up and in comes the neighbor, Joe and he’s in a wheelchair, (holy crip he’s a crapple, says Peter). Joe saves the day and becomes the hero, and Peter gets jealous. So jealous that he tries to stop a bank robbery, but as always, Peter messes that up.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: When Peter says it’ll be almost as fun as copyright infringement, then his face morphs into the face of Mickey Mouse and he does a Mickey voice. Second best would be Joe’s story of how he broke his back, by stopping the Grinch from stealing presents.
6) The Son Also Draws
Brian is in the scouts but he doesn’t like it and never joins in any activities. He gets thrown out of the scouts and Peter is pissed he decides to go to New York City to get Chris back into the Scouts. Unfortunately, Chris doesn’t want to go back into the Scouts, but can’t tell his father. They get lost on the way to New York and end up in a casino, run by Native Americans. Lois starts gambling like crazy and even loses the car. Peter learns that all the Native Americans share the money so he tells the people whom run the casino he is part Indian and they make him go on a spiritual journey to prove it. He starts talking to nature and even gets a message from the Fonz. He gets the car back and the ending sequence takes pokes at all minority groups in the same vein as the More You Know commercials.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: The More You Know commercials were great, but the Speed Racer at Chris’ drag race was great.
7) Brian: Portrait of a Dog
Peter and Brian enter into a dog show to get money for an air conditioner, but Brian gets very upset at having to beg for a doggy treat and walks away. On the car ride back home, Brian leaves and roams the street alone. The cops pick him up and bring him back home but an explosive argument between Peter and Brian causes Brian to walk out again and goes crazy and attacks a man. The police pick him up again and this time the sentence is lethal injection. Peter gets a trial for him, which he loses and the sentence is still the same. Luckily, Peter bribes the judges and Brian gets let free. This ended season one, by the way.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: I really liked the Pillsbury Doughboy being rolled over by Lois while making muffins.
---Disc 2---
From here on, we are dealing with season two, and the numbers refer to episode number.
1) Peter Peter Caviar Eater
When Lois’ rich aunt dies, The Griffin family inherits her gigantic mansion summer house. Peter is not quite as proper as the other rich stuck-up people, so Brian trains him to be more intelligent by making him watch Frasier. Peter eventually buys a vase for 100 million dollars (thinking he actually IS rich) but then comes to his senses and finds he’s screwed because he can’t find the money. Luckily, the summer house used to be a presidential whorehouse, and pictures revealing Lincoln, Grant and Robert E. Lee with some whores get him the money he needs to buy that vase, and buy his house in Quahog.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: The Cosby show bit at the end was hilarious. It all culminated in Cosby’s head falling off.
2) Holy Crap
Peter’s dad retires from the factory and comes to live with Peter. He is a staunch Catholic who doesn’t care about anything but his work. He has ignored Peter his whole life and Peter just wants to bond with him now. He even takes him to a baseball game, and he just walks out on him! Peter’s dad is just generally wreaking havoc and when he gets a job at Peter’s toy factory, he works the employees too hard and Peter complains. And gets fired. Peter just can’t get his father’s love. Fortunately, the pope is in town and Peter has a crazy idea, steal the pope to show his father how much he loves him. There’s also a funny subplot which has Peter’s father tells Chris what he does in the bathroom is wrong (Chris is doing number 2 while his father suggests otherwise).
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: TO THE POPEMOBILE! (theme of Batman plays).
3) Da Boom
This is the Family Guy version of Y2K. Peter gets scared by the impending Y2K disaster after a chicken warned him (and we also get an extended flashback of Peter fighting a chicken) and makes his family miss all the New Years celebration festivities and hiding in the basement with radiation suits on. When the clam hits at midnight and nothing happens, the family is rightly pissed, until planes and trains start crashing and bombs start going off. Peter and the Griffins are pretty much the only survivors and Peter manages to find a Twinkie factory that he knew would survive after the disaster. He starts his own civilization with other survivors but they turn on him when he wants to bring guns to the community. The town revolts and burns the guns, but Stewie's eggs (don’t ask) start hatching and a score of Stewiepus’ attack the city as the Griffins leave in search of the Carvel factory.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: When Peter comes out of the basement in his radiation suit, Chris yells out, RUN ET, and ET runs across the floor. A special shout out goes to the Trix bunny. When Peter learns of the Y2K disaster, he yells Oh My God! He then runs over to the Trix bunny and tells him Trix are for kids.
4) Brian In Love
Brian starts wetting the carpets in the house and covers up by blaming Stewie, but when the family finds out its Brian, they send him to the shrink. Brian learns he needs some time away, so he takes a two week vacation. He comes back and Stewie pees around the house to blame Brian and it’s back to the shrink again. The shrink determines the reason he’s wetting himself is because he’s really in love with Lois. He doesn’t know what to think but in the end, he has a chat with her and it’s decided they best remain friends. There’s a subplot with Stewie learning how to potty-train, but the show never really took off in my opinion.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: The Jetsons in the beginning of the show. They show George getting flipped around on the conveyor belt, then coming in all bruised and bloody and yelling at Jane. Great stuff.
5) Love Thy Trophy
So there’s a competition where the people of Quahog get to pick what the parade theme will be and the winners get a trophy. They perform the task of picking it (tie it to a pigeon’s foot, release them, and Charleston Heston will shoot the winning theme out of the sky), and this year, it’s Peter’s choice. The Episode of Who’s The Boss where Tony saw Angela naked in the shower. He, Joe, Quagmire and Cleveland make the best float, and win the clam, though everyone wants it. They decide to leave it in Angela’s and Tony’s hands in the street, but are surprised when it’s stolen. They get very upset and wage war on each other, but have to band together at the end to get Stewie back from the foster home. Stewie was sent to the foster home when Meg got a job to get a Prada back and said Stewie was her crack-addicted baby and someone from parental control heard this and took Stewie away. Just another day in the life of the Griffins.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: When the neighbors are arguing, we pan away to Rod Serling doing a Twilight Zone type opening.
6) Death is A Bitch
Meg feels a lump on Peter’s breast and he learns he has only a month to live. He finds out he has a clean bill of health but to avoid paying the bill, he writes he’s dead when filling out the bill. Of course, Death (voiced by Norm McDonald) comes knocking on the door to take Peter away. Peter runs away but Death trips and falls and sprains his ankle and he needs to stay off his feet for a while and stays on Peter’s couch. Of course, while Death is not working, Peter can’t die. He jumps off a building and drinks about 300 beers. Soon the whole town is shooting each other because they can’t die and Stewie finds he can’t kill Lois! When Death’s rules don’t apply, Peter has to be Death, and he has to kill the kids of Dawson’s Creek.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: There really wasn’t a standout one in this episode, maybe the 60 Minutes after dark where they are all naked and in bed, but that’s reaching.
7) The King is Dead
The old director of the Quahog players dies and Lois is asked to become the new artistic director, and she accepts. Of course, Peter wants in on the production. He starts taking over slowly and slowly, to the point where he drives Lois out of the production, and creates just a mess of a show. On the premiere, everyone in Quahog is present, and Lois is there to see a disaster. To her surprise it’s a success, and she stands up and basically yells at the audience at their lack of class. And then Peter farts, and the crowd erupts in cheers.
-Best Trademark Character Rip-Off: Surprisingly none, time to change the category.
---Disc 3---
8) I am Peter, Hear Me Roar
Where do we start with this one? Peter gets a pamphlet saying he’ll get a free boat if he attends a seminar. He attends the seminar with Lois but he takes the mystery box instead of the boat. The mystery box has free comedy tickets, so Peter attends it with his friends (who all have boats), gets drunk and makes an ass of himself. Everyone laughs at him so he thinks he’s a comedian. He goes around telling jokes and tells a sexist joke in front of a female employee and thus they and the company gets sued. He has to attend a seminar with Ms. Ironbox (voiced by Candace Bergen) and does badly so he goes to a woman’s retreat for two weeks. He comes back a changed man (acting like a woman) and Lois gets rather upset at the change. Only a lesbianic fight between Lois and Ironbox with ripped clothes brings Peter back. This is probably one of my favorite episodes for all the sight gags and remember when segments and every joke works on this episode.
-Best Flashback Scene: When Peter is talking about how hard it was during Lois’ pregnancy, we flashback to Lois throwing up in the bathroom while Peter is watching TV, and he just raises the volume of the TV to drown her out.
9) If I’m Dyin’, I’m Lyin’
There’s one show in the Griffin household that Peter and Chris can never miss: Gumbel 2 Gumbel. Yes, the show starring Bryant and Greg as two beach cops. They never miss a show and are so upset when they learn it’s cancelled. They then see some child who’s dying getting his dream wish of playing quarterback in the NFL. Peter gets the great idea that Chris is dying to get Gumbel to Gumbel back on the air, but the head of the dream wish foundation wants a body to put on TV. Peter then comes up with the great idea that he’s a miracle healer, which leads to even greater problems. People start worshiping at his doorstep, which angers God himself, who starts plaguing the family. Brian has fleas, Chris has acne, water turns to blood and frogs jump out of Peter’s shirt. Peter has to tell people he’s not a healer to get back on the good graces of God.
-No Flashbacks or Character Rip-Offs.
10) Running Mates
Lois wants to run for the school board president of Chris’ school. Peter and Lois are summoned into Chris’ school since he got in trouble for peeking in the girls locker room. While there, Peter meets his old wacky school teacher, who has become very mild due to sedatives the school has given him. Peter encourages him to stop taking he pills and he goes crazy, dropping endangered species birds eggs on the school lawn, getting fired. Meanwhile, Lois’ competition drops out of the race and she is now running unopposed. Peter tells her to rehire the recently fired teacher and she refuses. So Peter does what any person would do. Run against his wife, and then show compromising pictures of her in lingerie to win. He shows the TV news his progress in school and shows children reading, but they are reading porn that Peter gave to Chris who gave to his friends. Peter is then forced to resign a la Nixon.
Best Flashback Scene: Peter losing in checkers to Brian, then driving away with the chessboard and driving the car into the water, then blowing it up.
11) A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Bucks
It’s Peter’s birthday and they go spend it at Bob’s Funland. Turns out, Bob is some kid that Peter teased as a kid and he makes fun of Peter. Peter can’t enjoy his birthday anymore since he’s a nobody. He wants to be famous like Bob or his cousin Kathy Griffin. Chris gives his father a painting that is, “partly an expression of my teenage angst, but it’s mostly a moo-cow!” He puts it in his car window and some guy drives by and buys his painting for $5,000 and invites the family to New York. Peter sees this as an opportunity to use him to live out and fulfill his dreams. They go to New York and the man who bought the painting wants to take Chris away from his family and changes his hair and gives him Kate Moss as a girlfriend. Chris tells his father he can’t see him anymore and he tries using Meg and her bird calling talent to make money, but that doesn’t go to well (though she does call a pissed off Big Bird). They go to Chris’ art expo and he unveils his painting of his father and he is laughed out of the building. They all leave NY but not before Calvin Klein picks Stewie as the model for his diapers.
Funniest Scene: Peter Griffin makes a crack about Hillary Clinton cleaning up NYC, and Lois makes a comment how she loves Peter using topical humor like Murphy Brown, then they show the characters of Murphy Brown going blah-blah-blah then name dropping a prominent 80’s political figure.
12) Fifteen Minutes of Shame
They start the episode showing the beginnings of Quahog with Peter as the clam, and the first appearance of Adam West as the mayor. His suit falls off and he’s naked. Meg has a sleepover that night, and Meg is concerned her family will embarrass her. They do, as Peter falls in the stairs, getting stuck, and then Meg’s friends are sleeping and hear Peter and Lois making suggestive sounds. Her friends leave and Meg brings her family on a Ricki Lake type TV show where Meg shows how embarrassing her family can be. This leads to a TV exec landing the Griffins in a Real World type show. Meg quits and is replaced by a young attractive blond, and when she takes all the TV time, Peter gets angry and the entire family quits. The exec is left in a tight spot and hires Tom Arnold, Fran Drescher, the fat guy from Boogie Nights and the Olsen Twins to replace them. Meg finds her family in a crummy hotel room and they are stuck there for 6 months, but at least they are a family.
Best TV Show Rip-Off: Meg typing on her green screen computer like every ending to Doogie Howser. Also, Ronald McDonald as a stern father was funny too.
13) Road to Rhode Island
Stewie is with Lois’ grandparents and Brian wants to go pick him up. Brian gets piss drunk and Stewie finds him, but leaves his book bag on the seat and it’s stolen. The tickets were in that bag too. So they have to get back home to Quahog somehow. They stay in a motel with a bad credit card. So they have to find a way to get back home. On the way, they stop by Austin, where Brian’s mom lives, and the reason why he’s drinking. He’s still thinking about her giving him away. He goes back to where he lived to learn his mom died last year and the family had her stuffed. Brian and Stewie stole her and buried her in a park. They then go back to Rhode Island on a train singing Road to Rhode Island.
Funniest Line: A man asks Stewie if he’s too young to be flying alone to which Stewie responds: Aren’t you too old to be wearing braces. Second place: Stewie tries calling home and dials 867-5309 then says, DAMN YOU TOMMY TOO TONE!
14) Let’s Go To The Hop
A Columbian Cartel Deliver crashes in Quahog and toads hop out. Two kids lick the toads and get very high, and it’s the latest craze to hit Quahog. Peter takes the prerogative and dresses as one of the school kids to prevent the toad licking craze from going any further. Lando Griffin infiltrates the school and tries to warn the kids about using toad (to the theme of a Grease Song).
Best 80’s reference: Lando Griffin walks into a library for detention and sees the breakfast club: Tony The Tiger telling other breakfast cereal icons about getting cigarettes for Christmas. Meg becomes cool by saying she’s going to the dance with Lando but Peter agrees to go with the cool girl. Meg goes anyway and Peter redeems himself by saying Meg was his dream girl as he says he’ll drive off a cliff, dying. Meg is now popular and the 80’s references close out the show to the tune of Don’t You Forget About Me.
Best Character Rip-Off: Has to be Tony the Tiger, as mentioned before.
---Disc 4---
15) Dammit, Janet
Lois realizes that Stewie doesn’t play well with other kids and so she puts him in a nursery, against Stewie’s wishes. Lois then decides she’s going to get a job, saying she needs excitement. Peter gives her some excitement, by setting the drapes on fire. Chris complains that who is going to protect him from the monkey in his closet (his first appearance by the way). Peter tells his friends about Lois wanting to get a job and Quagmire suggests being a flight attendant, and the husbands fly for free. Meanwhile, in the nursery, Stewie starts falling for a girl named Janet. Lois hates the job and wants to quit but Peter won’t allow that since he’s been flying for free the whole time. Lois finds out and argues with Peter in the bathroom while the plane is being hijacked. They land in Cuba where everyone is sent home except a fat man married to an attractive red head, then show an artists rendering, of Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Meanwhile, Janet leaves Stewie for a boy who has a cookie, then tries to get her back by using other girls. Janet then tells her she likes him, and then asks for a cookie, and Stewie realizes all she cares about is cookie.
Best Character Rip-Off: When Peter is told he can fly for free if Lois is a flight attendant, he tells Tink (Tinkerbell, who has a beer) he doesn’t need her anymore, and she gets a trite bit pissed.
Best Line: I’ve watched that crappy Julia Roberts movie 47 times now. Look at those lips. It’s like a baboon’s ass on her face!
16) There’s Something About Paulie
Lois is exhausted with all her errands she has to run, and tells Peter she needs a car. They go to a car dealership and Peter gets a car that Lois doesn’t want, and it breaks down before they even drive it out of the lot. Peter gets upset and goes to Cleveland’s deli and a mobster overhears him and gets him a new car by destroying the old car, and he gets a brand new car. Cleveland warns him that he’s indebted to the mob and Peter says he won’t be hearing from them, but he does. His mission, he needs to take big fat Paulie to the movies, How Stella Got Her Groove Back II. Peter does that and Paulie won’t go away and joins him for dinner. Lois gets upset and tells Peter she doesn’t want Paulie around. So Peter tells Paulie they can’t be friends because of Lois and without Lois, they’d still be friends. So Paulie tries whacking Lois twice, and Peter goes to have the hits called off, but Paulie gets killed.
Best TV show rip-off: Dharma and Greg. “Dharma, get off the couch, you’re such a free spirit.”
17) He’s Too Sexy for His Fat
We start things off with a hilarious grocery store sequence where Chris gets made fun of by the police for being fat. They return home and Brian’s fleas overrun the house. They need some exterminators to eradicate the fleas, and need to leave the house for a hotel. They get there and Chris again is made fun of for being fat when he’s sitting on the diving board (hey, you can’t park your van there). Chris has to start exercising, but it won’t work. So they resort to the next best thing, liposuction. Chris doesn’t get it, but Peter does, and he’s now thin. Meanwhile, to make Chris jealous, he eats like a piggy and gets fatter. Peter can’t stop getting plastic surgery and comes back even buffer and prettier. Peter waits in line at a grocery store and meets the president of the beautiful persons club, and he gets all the perks of being beautiful, and it all goes to his head. He even brings Chris along to his beautiful people’s club and he isn’t allowed in, so Peter goes himself. Lois yells at him on the way home and Peter drives off. He is too beautiful and stares at himself and crashes, and falls into a vat full of lard, turning into his old self.
Best Trademark Rip-Off: Jabba the Griffin.
18) E Peterbus Unum
Peter runs into Cleveland who has a trampoline he used with his tax refund. Even Quagmire and Joe got refunds. Peter gets his tax refund and instead gets an audit. He doesn’t owe any money but he isn’t entitled to a refund. He tries to build a pool for his family and ends up cutting power to Quahog, and he learns he can’t build a pool there. He goes to the mayor’s office (played by Adam West) and he learns his property is not on the map. He’s not even part of the US. Peter creates Petoria and even makes the news. Peter then goes to the UN and is not respected at all. He starts invading US property, Joe’s pool. President Clinton (who is naked) says that this must be stopped, and a US blockade is issued and all power and water is cut off to their house (with some great animation). He starts inviting over all the leaders of other countries (like Iraq, Cuba etc) for a party. Eventually, Lois and the kids leave for the US. They start threatening his house with missiles so Peter goes to negotiate with Adam West to make Petoria a part of the US again.
Best Trademark Rip-Off: Peter Griffin’s grandfather helped create one of the greatest characters ever, but the original name was not accepted. Instead of Bugs Bunny, his name was Ephram the retarded rabbit.
19) The Story on Page One
Meg is applying to colleges, and needs something to get her into Brown, like extracurricular activities. Being president of the Quahog Luke Perry fan club wasn’t enough. She becomes part of the paper and tries to get an interview with mayor Adam West. She even does get her interview and realizes the mayor is crazy. She has her story all set but her father thinks it’s boring and puts a different story in the paper, that Luke Perry is gay. It gets even worse when Luke Perry reads the high school papers and sues the Griffins. He comes over and eventually the suit is dropped and Meg gets to interview Luke. There’s also a funny subplot where Stewie wants to be big and he takes over Chris’ brain.
Best Line: Meg, “I always wanted to go to Brown. Well, my first choice was Wellsely but my mom said I might as well buy hiking boots and call myself a lesbian right now.”
Best Movie Rip-Off: Peter talks about his job in college, a Ghostbuster who busted Patrick Swayze from Ghost.
20) Wasted Talent
The norm for all animated sitcoms now, the Willy Wonka rip-off. Instead of a chocolate factory, it’s a beer factory (Pawtucket Brewery). Death has to pick up some people for alcohol poisoning as Peter drinks as much as he can to find the scroll. Peter eventually finds the silver scroll (much the same way that Charlie did in the original with the same music) and goes to the brewery. He takes Brian with him and the Willy Wonka spoofs are everywhere. Peter eventually gets thrown out of the place when he drinks the beer that makes him float and he and Brian have to fart to get down. There’s also a running plot where Lois is competing for her pupil to win the piano competition that always causes her to be second place behind Alexis. Lois can’t find a student until she hears Peter playing piano drunk, uses him as her student and they win.
Best Character Rip-Off: I think it would have to be Kazoo who pops up when Peter asks what can he do now and Peter says not now Kazoo to which he responds, its not always about you fatty!
21) Fore, Father
It’s spring-cleaning time at the Griffin house, and Peter ruins the house by cleaning the windows with a hose. Lois tells him not to do anything so he and Chris join Joe and Cleveland and their sons on a camping trip. On that trip, they see just how Joe acts around his son and how well behaved he is. They then see how lazy Chris is and that Peter needs to teach him responsibility. He tells him to guard the camp and of course, he fails. Stewie, meanwhile, is going to the doctor and gets a shot. Getting back to Chris, he needs to learn responsibility by getting a job, which he does, at a golf driving range. Meanwhile, Stewie is getting sick and Brian convinces him that the needles make him sick. They go to the driving range and they learn Cleveland Jr. is a golf star. Turns out, Jr. can’t sit still, but Peter manages to take him under his wing, ignoring Chris. Quagmire soon takes Chris under his wing in some hilarious segments. Eventually, Peter and Junior get asked to do a man/boy golf game. They are winning at the 17th hole when Junior, gets disinterested and runs away.
Best Rip-Off: Hic-A-Doo-La, just like every cheesy Annette Funicelli and Frankie beach movie.
Season 1 Review
Man, what a great season that was. The 7 episodes were all laugh out loud funny, with enough stupid flashbacks, mocking TV shows, remember when segments, and anything else in between. As I said before, nothing is sacred on this show. It’s just such a great season to show that, and every episode had laugh out loud segments and what the fuck just happened segments to make this one of the most memorable, and probably the most offensive series, ever shown on television. Season 1 was a clear winner, with all 7 episodes being above average and most bordering on greatness.
Season 2 Review
Season 2 is more hit or miss than Season 1, but that’s to be expected with three times as many episodes. Most of the episodes are hits but there are a few less than memorable shows. The memorable ones are really memorable, and they really pick it up mid season with some absolutely great eps (like all of disc 3) that they carried into the third season. This is one of those great shows where they nailed exactly what they were going for right from the start, and the writing and jokes just got better and better as it went along. This season is a clear example of that. Of the 21 episodes, probably two-thirds of them had me laughing hysterically with very memorable lines or flashback sequences. As with the first season, no one and nothing is safe from being made fun of. Another great season for the folks at Family Guy.
DVD Features
A) Extras
---Disc One---
1) Fox.com Promos
There are promos for: Don’t Vote, Stewie’s Demands, Family Values, Stewie vs. Family, Super bowl, Pants On and Mission. They are all promos for Family Guy’s debut episode.
2) Feature Commentary on Episode 1
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Alex Borstein and David Zuckerman. They really don’t say much on this (or other) commentary, since they spend most of the time watching the episode. They do explain the titles for the first four episodes, wanting generic death titles, but then they didn’t know what episodes they were speaking about. They even curse on the commentary, earning it’s for mature audiences only rating.
3) Feature Commentary on Episode 6
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Craig Hoffman, Alex Borstein and Chris Sheridan. Just like the first one, they spend about half of it watching the show and the other half talking. They talk about the More You Know bits at the end, and Alex and Seth start doing the Lois and Peter/Stewie voices which is always fun to hear, they seem to have pretty good chemistry together.
---Disc Two---
1) Feature Commentary on Episode 1
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Chris Sheridan, Ron Hoff and Seth Green. This is a decent commentary where the Seths just start doing their voices (Seth Green is Chris, and Seth McFarlane voices Peter, Brian, and Stewie, among others). They do the usual of watching the show rather than talking, but I liked this one a lot, because of the two Seths doing the voices. Chris and Ron by the way did the music, and this show has a lot of it. They talk about music a bit, and how this was nominated for an Emmy for the “Stinking Rich,” song. They also mention the Austin Powers reference in the movie, of which Seth Green was a part of. There is a lot of dead time though on the commentary.
2) Feature Commentary on Episode 2
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Chris Sheridan, Danny Smith and Steve Callaghan. They talk for maybe 8 minutes on this commentary, mostly during the end when one of them (Danny I believe), talks about his love for Lois. If you miss this commentary, you aren’t missing much.
---Disc Three---
1) Feature Commentary on Episode 12
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Steve Callaghan and Lisa Wilhoit. Steve wrote the episode, and Lisa did almost all the female voices on the show (besides Meg and Lois). They do a fair amount of talking on this one, moreso than other ones, and it’s actually not too bad. There are a bunch of silent moments, but it was one of the better commentaries on here.
2) Feature Commentary on Episode 14
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Steve Callaghan, Matt Weitzman, and Seth Green, and that’s about it. Seth Green doesn’t say too much unfortunately, and no one else said too much either. It was a very plain commentary and probably the worst on here so far.
---Disc Four---
1) Feature Commentary on Episode 17
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Chris Sheridan, Danny Smith and Steve Callaghan. The commentary is about as exciting as all the other ones, i.e., uneventful, until Seth’s cell phone goes off in the middle of it. The commentary isn’t too bad, and it’s the most amount of talking they do on any of them. Not a bad commentary.
2) Feature Commentary on Episode 18
The commentary is done by: Seth McFarlane, Neil Goldman, Garrett Donovan, and Greg Garcia. This is the final commentary on the DVD set, and it’s like all the other ones. 70% of the time they watch and laugh at the jokes, and they talk the rest of the time.
3) Behind The Scenes Featurette
This is 4 minutes long and criminally short. It appeared on Fox probably between shows or on the news, and it shows some cast/director/writer interviews. The quality on the featurette is quite bad (especially from the earlier cartoons) and shows how good the DVD is. They show them recording the voices, and it’s amazing to see Seth do all the voices together, and switching between the three seamlessly.
B) Audio/Video
The sound is in Dolby Surround but really isn’t needed, since it’s just a TV show with no need for surrounds. The video is fullscreen. The video does suffer a bit from animation problems, and sometimes seems to freeze a bit. The colors are bright, but this is really just a simple TV show cartoon transferred to DVD. It’s a bit better than TV, which is all we can ask for.
Audio: 6.0
Video: 6.5
C) Liner Notes
There are no liner notes about the DVD, though there is a pamphlet with the Fox DVDs. The DVD’s all come in very thin slipcases, with episode listings on the back with brief summaries on the episodes and show which ones have commentary.
D) Easter Eggs
None.
Overall Review
The TV shows themselves were absolutely great. The DVD’s, however, is not as great. As a DVD buyer, most people expect oodles of extras to be thrown onto the discs. Family Guy itself just doesn’t have that much material to be put on. They had maybe 8 minutes of extras on here (with the making of and the commercials). The commentaries themselves really weren’t that good either. I’d hope it’d be better on the Season 3 disc set, but I heard it’s all the same. Even so, it’s one of the greatest animated television series around, and so offensive I can see why it was cancelled. Of course, it’s cult following and DVD sales actually made Fox bring the series back in 2005 which I can’t wait for, and I know that they will have more extras on that! The DVD doesn’t feature anything you couldn’t catch on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network; it just gives you a nice package that has all the episodes. Recommended on the basis of the show alone, though don’t expect much from the DVD’s.
Overall Rating
8.0
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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