Family Guy: the crass family from Rhode Island draws a cult following.
TV Review
Life with Brian
by Matt Nippert
A talking baby and a martini-drinking mutt? It can only be the occasionally inspired __Family Guy__.
Arise, spawn of Springfield. The Simpsons proved that cartoons could survive outside Saturday morning timeslots (the place where charter programmes go to die), and the legions that have evolved from Matt Groening’s creation continue to strive for that perfect mix of slapstick, satire and homily.
From South Park to Futurama to bro’Town, many have achieved a working blend and graduated as paid-up members of the animated family. Family Guy, by contrast, is the runt of the litter.
Lacking even ironic morals, and settling for a blunt comedic axe where others apply a satiric scalpel, the show was cast out in infancy and exposed on a hilltop. Yet somehow – and fortunately for the crass among us – the show refuses to die.
It’s easy to see why Fox decided to cancel Family Guy after its first season. With its morbidly obese and insensitive husband (Peter), understanding wife (Lois) and three children including a baby (Chris, Meg and Stewie), Family Guy’s Griffin clan are obviously deformed, post-nuclear clones of their yellow ancestors.
Relying heavily on cut‑away gags, tangential vignettes that mostly refer to obscure pop-culture ephemera (Mannequin, anyone?), the series is deeply flawed. It hammers at boundaries that other shows handle cleverly. An elderly paedophiliac neighbour has a thing for Chris, and Meg is regularly called a lesbian.
South Park memorably spoofed the show and depicted its writers as manatees – large mammals also known as sea cows – who developed stories and gags based on randomly selected “idea balls”.
In one episode, Peter launches a molestation lawsuit after feeling shame following a prostate examination, and the blue-collar worker begins his legal crusade with a speech containing no fewer than five proctological puns: “There’s no turning a brown eye to this. I’m going to sue that bastard and make him pay out his ass. No ifs, butts, or maybes …”
Yet somehow this crass family from Rhode Island drew a cult following and staved off not one but two death sentences. Millions of DVD sales resurrected the show in 2002 after another hiatus, but surely mercy killing would have been the kindest cut?
The fans may have a point. Despite overuse of the cutaway gag, the technique occasionally reaches surreal genius.
One tangent sees Darth Vader re-imagined as a parking-meter warden, wearing a uniform beneath his black helmet. The young Vader, sighing mechanically at the futility of his life, tries to pursue his dreams by seeking a loan. The bank staff member is initially perplexed by his application:
“I’m not sure I get this.”
“I want to build a giant space station that can destroy a planet.”
“I don’t know if that would be a good investment on our end.”
“I mean, I want to open a sports bar.”
And even the Griffin household has some redeeming members. Only someone with a funnybone of stone would euthanise Stewie and Brian, the family’s two most original and articulate members.
Stewie, a diabolically matricidal infant with a rugby-ball-shaped head, speaks with an upper-crust English accent. On visiting Florida, he says, “Just think, somewhere in this state right now Jeb Bush is eating a live puppy.”
Of course, a talking baby would break suspension of disbelief, so only Brian the dog can comprehend Stewie’s eloquent and savage denunciations. Brian, the martini-drinking, cigarette-smoking, Prius-driving renaissance mutt, can also talk, and does so in rich baritone.
Brian’s voice is enough to get a gig as a radio host, but Stewie thwarts his plans for seriousness by joining as his co-host, rebranding the show “Dingo and the Baby” and adding over-the-top shock-jock sound effects and ridiculously overwrought promos.
Gore Vidal, scheduled to appear on the show during saner days, walks into the studio during an on-air competition that involves shooting frankfurters at a semi-naked woman.
This subplot can too easily be seen as a metaphor for the show as a whole. Family Guy is the crass, occasionally inspired, lowest-common-denominator black sheep of the cartoon pantheon.
The third season of Project Runway may not have talking dogs, but it’s conveying all the bitchiness for which the fashion world is renowned – and that’s just the guys.
In many ways this reality show is Scrapheap Challenge retooled for the fairer sex: taking the best parts of America’s Top Model (prettiness and cattiness) and adding a construction element.
One challenge in the elimination show called for contestants to design a gown for Miss USA to wear in a beauty pageant. Jeffrey Sebelia, a tattooed and pierced competitor, spoke for many on Planet Earth when he said: “The word ‘pageant’ to me has weird connotations, you know: JonBenet Ramsey.”
Carrying the hopes of millions of bogans, this rock-inspired designer is the man most likely to make black jeans fashionable again, but after his clashes with fellow competitors – he called one a “feminazi” – he’s also proving divisive.
Three experts oversee the competition on screen, but a disclaimer during the credits notes that the fashion judges consider “both their scores and input from producers … in reaching their elimination decisions”.
So, although Sebelia has not yet proved himself a frontrunner, he’ll probably survive in the competition for some weeks at least.
It’s refreshing to see such honesty, and this will no doubt keep more compelling characters on television, but where does rigging the voting leave “reality”?
Diana Wichtel is on holiday.
FAMILY GUY, C4, Thursday, 7.30pm (repeats screen weekdays, 7.00pm).
PROJECT RUNWAY, TV3, Friday, 7.30pm.
