The Family Guy, Vol. 7 (2009)

3 Discs DVD

I was one of the apparently very few people that just didn't get Family Guy when it first came out back in 1999. I watched a few episodes here and there with any number of my legions of friends who adored the show, and I just never got why they thought it was so damn funny. I thought parts of the show were funny at times, but in general, the episodes as a whole were rather lame to me. So, like anyone who doesn't like something, I didn't watch it anymore and, for a time, a lot of other people didn't watch either and the show was canceled. Apparently that fan base grew substantially since then, from its time on Adult Swim and a series of high-selling DVD's and now the show is back on Fox and, from what it seems, here to stay for quite awhile. They even have a spin-off coming this year, The Cleveland Show. So, as you can imagine, I was rather dismayed when I was asked to review Family Guy, Volume 7, but I figured I haven't really given this new incarnation a shot, and since it was sticking around, maybe it had changed for the better. The good news for the fans was it seemingly hasn't changed a bit... which was bad news for me.

Before I get flamed with comments on just that first paragraph, I will say that there are parts of this three-disc set that I did enjoy. We get 13 episodes on this set - the last four from Season 6 and the first nine episodes from Season 7 (I still don't really get why they format these sets in such a way) - and I was surprised right away with the enormous amount of guest voice spots they're able to snag all the time, which starts with the first episode on the set, Back to the Woods, which is the latest episode to feature James Woods voice his animated self. Other notable guest voices include Chace Crawford, Amanda Bynes as a girl Chris falls for, Ike Barinholtz in a rather humorous spot as comedian Dane Cook, Will Sasso as a hamster, Carrie Fisher as Peter's boss at the brewery, Elisha Cuthbert in an unspecified voice, Debbie Reynolds as an old third-grade teacher and even Frank Welker reprising his famous role as the voice of Megatron. We also get a number of celebs as themselves like Barry Manilow, Meredith Baxter, Johnny Knoxville, Bob Barker, Sinbad, Bruce Jenner, Andy Dick and Seth Rogen. What's cool about the guests who voice themselves is they're cool with making fun of themselves, and it's kind of amazing to see the cast list at the end of each episode and just see all these names pop up alongside creator Seth MacFarlane, who voices many of the main characters (Peter, Brian, Stewie, Quagmire and many others) alongside Alex Borstein as Lois, Mila Kunis as Meg, Seth Green as Chris and Mike Henry as Cleveland. Of course, there are also the recurring roles like Patrick Warburton's Joe, the crippled cop and Jennifer Tilly as his wife Bonnie and, of course, Adam West as the Mayor. Still, while all this star-power is impressive, it can't distract me from the rather annoying and repetitive format this show adheres so closely to.

It seems this show's bread and butter is the incessant use of flashbacks and metaphoric cutaways that simply annoy the living hell out of me. It seems that this is the only way creator Seth McFarlane and his writing staff seem able to get a large majority of their jokes across and this format gets old even after just one episode. It almost wouldn't be so bad if they were these super-quick cutaways and, some of them are, but a vast majority of these flashbacks or cutaways can last for upwards of two or three minutes and it seems they have such a need to milk a joke for as long as possible. If the over-abundance of these aren't enough, some of these are just so random, utterly dull and pointless that it's like the time I spraypainted a bullseye on my chest before archery class (CUT TO: An arrow flying through my heart).... Sure, I think social commentary is all fine and good, and some of this stuff is really damn funny here, but, like these never-ending jokes, they feel the need to lay on this material so thick that it loses so much luster. Also, I think Seth McFarlane has a bit of an unhealthy obsession with Back to the Future as well...

As much as I hate that overwhelming aspect of the show, there's a rather disturbing trend I saw pop up in these new episodes that I hate even more, and that is extended musical interludes. It's one thing to do an original song in an episode, like they actually did quite well with Seth MacFarlane as Brian singing along with Frank Sinatra Jr. who voices his animated self in Tales of a Third Grade Nothing, but there were several instances throughout these episodes where they just threw a song in there... and played the entire thing with some weird animated montage on top of it. What the f&*%???!!! The characters weren't even doing anything funny in any of these things, like one where Stewie makes a music video set to that Everything I'll Do, I Do It For You song by Bryan Adams or, the very very very worst one, where Peter needs a "distraction" and we see a live-action video performance of Conway Twitty doing one of his songs. Unf&^@ing real, people. Are you guys that god-damn unoriginal or that stuck for lame jokes or flashbacks that all you can do is stick a whole song in the episode and animate over it... or, worse yet, PUT A LIVE-ACTION VIDEO OF A WHOLE SONG BEING PERFORMED? Absolute laziness and lunacy, folks. It's bad enough that you keep milking your jokes until past the last drop of humor, but this is really crossing the line. We don't even see stuff this elaborately lame in hour-long shows, let alone a half-hour show. Amazing...ly horrible.

I could ramble on forever about things like how Stewie's character was just raw spastic hilarity in early episodes and now he seems to be this less-used quirky little man-baby, or countless things, but the way I see it, I didn't like Family Guy back then and I certainly don't like it now. Apparently there enough people out there who don't get tired of flashbacks or metaphoric cutaways 10 times an episode that can ensure a long (second) lifespan for this animated hit. Just don't count on me being one of them, as long as this inane format stays intact.

We get a decent amount of special features here and they all get kicked off with some deleted scenes. We get 29 total scenes here and they're all tiny little bits, usually those little cut metaphor bits that are even worse than the ones they use in the show. All of these scenes take about 11 minutes and some change, and there is a pretty good one at the very end, and a few decent ones sprinkled in throughout, but, overall, these are pretty lame.

Next up we get some Animatic Episodes, and we get three of them, Love Blacktually, Long John Peter and The Man With Two Brians, which you can also watch with commentary from a bunch of different crew members. These are usually rather lame because it's just the episode, only put together with the rough sketches and no music, but these have some extra tidbits that we don't even get on the deleted scenes, so it's kind of cool, I guess. Still, they're just kind of odd to watch, and there's not that much new material here... and the new material is, in most cases, even more... well, out there/wrong than the show, so if you dig the show, I guess you'll dig these... but I really don't.

Take Me Out To pLace Tonight is next and this is the song that Frank Sinatra Jr. and Brian sing in the Tales of a Third Grade Nothing episode and we hear from Frank Sinatra Jr. himself and some of the other producers and we get some interesting tidbits from Sinatra Jr. and his experiences on the show. We hear about some other insights from producers about making fun of Hollywood clubs like Les Deux (which I've been to and does rather resemble pLace, the club that Stewie transforms the big-band club into). We see some nice bits of creator Seth McFarlane and Frank Sinatra Jr. actually recording the vocals and it was interesting that Sinatra Jr. actually conducts the orchestra for the instruments. It gets kind of long here, but there are some pretty cool tidbits here, although a lot of this 12-minute featurette is pretty random.

Family Guy Cribz is next and this featurette takes us inside the actual production offices of Family Guy, and, yes, it is set up like the MTV show. It's funny because I've actually been here before, but for an American Dad event, but I was only in a small part of the office and we go all through the offices here. We see quite a bit of this big production team that puts the show together, but it's a pretty odd little 16-minute piece, although I guess that's in true Family Guy fashion.

Comic-Con 2008 is next and this is actually the entire panel at Comic-Con last year and I didn't check out this panel last year so yeah, it's interesting. We get some of the writers and producers including the voices of most of the cast and the two big ones here are creator Seth McFarlane and Seth Green, who provide for almost all of the comic relief on this whole panel. It must have been one of the shorter panels, since this was only about 23 minutes long, but it's a nice treat for fans of the show who couldn't make it to San Diego last year and a nice DVD supplement.

The last thing we get here is a Family Guy Art Show and apparently they do four of these art shows at their offices every year, where some of the Family Guy artists do all these different pieces of art and people can bid on these pieces, and they donate the proceeds to the Children's Miracle Network to help out underprivileged families in Los Angeles. It's only a four-minute piece, but it's pretty cool to see some of these unique art pieces and it's a very cool thing that such a big show does for the community. Kudos.

This is the first time I've actually given Family Guy a fair shake and actually watched a block of episodes in a row. Sadly, these one-trick pony metaphor jokes are just as old now as they were back then, and while there are some patches of comedy, it's pretty damn boring to me.