Family Guy

[Wesley]

Yup. I'm going to rant about Family Guy. The cute little Vietnam Memorial bit that they did is what pushed me into this rant. War sucks. For all involved. My dad rode a submarine during the Vietnam War, so he was not dodging bullets, but he did get the honor of stacking body bags at the end of the pier so his fallen friends could be sent home. Not pleasant.

I understand that the idea of some comedy is to take people out of their comfort zone, thus enabling a different point of view, and perhaps a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us, and allowing us to find humor in an otherwise morbid topic. On paper that sounds great, but it is all too easy to go too far into the areas of distasteful and disrespectful "comedy" to the point where the redeeming qualities of humor are lost in the delivery.

Some people may say,"Oh, lighten up. You just don't have a good sense of humor." Hmm. Or they may say,"You just don't get it." I see. febreeze. smurf you. I have a great sense of humor, and I do get it, and that isn't funny.

All too often Family Guy relies on the shock value of what it claims to be intellectual comedy. I watch it. I understand it. It does not make me laugh. It is formulaic to the point of parodying itself into nothing more than a string of punchlines. That is not good comedic writing. That is spoon feeding the lowest common denominator.

[bella]

I do agree with you although I haven't seen this particular episode. Family Guy is entertaining, funny to watch but sometimes way over the top. Making fun of people with Down Syndrome isn't artistic freedom. It might be relieving to laugh about something which normally is tabooed but if you have fun at the expense of minorities, ill people or others it is not funny.
There was this one episode with the prom night dumpster baby which really was just bad taste. Not funny. At all.

[Dowster]

For the first few series it started well, I always used to make sure that I never missed and episode

Now I don't even bother with it, it's degenerated too much. It's kind of like when I was 12 or 13 and I would be in a group with friends and someone would decide to make up a "funny story" and record it on a cassette recorder, it would start out as a story and then just go rapidly downhill, and afterwards they would play it back and piss themselves laughing, and I would be thinking - what the smurf is wrong with all of you?? grow up..