Family Guy is the piece of media I’ve consumed most over my life. My dad was a big fan of the original pre-cancellation run, so I grew up with the first three seasons on DVD, and every single one of those episodes is seared permanently into my mind. When the show came back, I was ecstatic beyond words. It’s had an unbelievable influence on the way I speak, how I think, and what I find funny. If you hate me, blame Seth MacFarlane.
In my humblest of opinions, Seasons 2, 3, and 4 are the best, and the show dies at the end of Season 7. I’ve seen every single episode of the series multiple times and will continue to for as long as they release new ones. I’m in too deep, at this point — either the show dies first, or I do.
Season 4’s “PTV” is the best episode of the series by far, and the one that I recommend everyone watch. It’s the perfect encapsulation of the show’s attributes at their highest point — naughty jokes, offensive humor, ridiculous songs, and references to other TV shows. “Road to Europe” and “Brian Wallows and Peter’s Swallows” are also classics beyond comprehension, the latter being unbelievably sweet for an adult cartoon about farting. I can recite every line from every one of those episodes, and many more, from memory easily.
Since the late 2000s, though, the series’ writing has fallen off a cliff, and every episode after about 2008 has smacked of laziness, preachiness, and just general incompetence. Yes, dear writers, I know — you’re all liberal atheists. More jokes about the A-Team, please! The most recent seasons are what I’d lovingly refer to as embarrassing messes, and many of them have simple errors like bad line readings and orphaned jokes that could easily have been caught or corrected if anyone cared. Nobody does.
That being said, the one small place that the show has improved since Disney bought Fox is, unbelievably, the animation. New episodes
look great — way better than the show ever has! Disney must have forced them to buck up the visuals. Shame they aren’t in service of strong writing, but.
I love Family Guy dearly, even though, by volume, it’s a horrible show. But it was, is, and always will be a big part of me. A big, fat part. Shipoopi!
(And yes, if you’re the kind of person who gets legitimately offended by comedy, you shouldn’t watch it. It makes fun of race, gay people, trans people, religion, women, sexual assault, political figures, terrorism, drugs, alcoholism, suicide, the Holocaust, and everything else you’re not supposed to laugh at. If you can think of it, they’ve made fun of it in the quarter-century the show’s been on the air. I appreciate it for not pulling any punches — I just wish the quality of the writing wasn’t abysmal.)
