Family Guy - Discussion Thread

[The Mike]

And man did that episode every get personal with the Pheonix death stuff. It was funny, but man... too soon, too soon

I thought it was more of a shot at Joaquin Phoenix than anything else. They did go into how he died but that was common knowledge but to say "Now we are left with a cut lipped version of what could have been" was a shot at Joaquin not River.

How about that 5-minute Conway Twitty cut-away last season? Ten seconds is funny; 5 minutes is simply filling time.

Its no different than with Peter hit his knee and reacts for 5 minutes or the random Chicken fights. Its all supposed to illicit a "What the hell?" reaction and trust me that one did.

 

[El Skutto]

Its no different than with Peter hit his knee and reacts for 5 minutes or the random Chicken fights. Its all supposed to illicit a "What the hell?" reaction and trust me that one did.

It got that response the first time they did it, in an earlier episode and using only a 30-second clip. That was funny. But using the exact same joke in an entirely different episode and dragging it on for 5 minutes isn't funny anymore. It's merely a way to pad an under-running 17-minute program so that it fits its alloted 22-minute timeslot.

Don't get me wrong, I love Family Guy, but they've been pretty hit-or-miss during the past couple of years.

 

[Morbach]

"Louis,tell me you've heard...." then he goes into singing Surfin' bird

 

[The Mike]

But using the exact same joke in an entirely different episode and dragging it on for 5 minutes isn't funny anymore. It's merely a way to pad an under-running 17-minute program so that it fits its alloted 22-minute timeslot.

Interesting observation....How do you classify the fall and groan? Peter has used it for the exact three or four minute interval at least twice in the course of the show and Lois just used it this past season only she was grabbing her boob not her knee. Would that still fall in the same category as Conway Twitty?

 

[LChinoz]

A lot of the stuff Family Guy does is try and piss the audience of a little with these really long interuptions...kind of Kaufman like. They don't do it that often, but when they do it goes on for minutes.

 

[Dally]

That Conway Twitty thing was the most obvious filler ever. I changed the channel after about the first minute or two.

 

[bumblebee]

Love this show and I love how they go out of there way to insult everyone.

 

[El Skutto]

Interesting observation....How do you classify the fall and groan? Peter has used it for the exact three or four minute interval at least twice in the course of the show and Lois just used it this past season only she was grabbing her boob not her knee. Would that still fall in the same category as Conway Twitty?

The fall and groan was longest the first time it was used. It was funny because it's something we've all done, or witnessed. The second time it was used, it was shorter because by that point, we all got the joke and this was just a quick callback. Like, "hey, remember how funny it was when we did this?"

Then they used it with Lois, again as a callback, but this time for much less time (I think it barely lasted 10 seconds) and as more of a "you didn't see that coming, did you?" type of thing. Once we got that it was yet another callback, they quickly ended the joke.

But the Conway Twitty thing is the exact opposite. The first time they did it, they did it for 30 seconds because repetition is comedy. And it WAS funny. But 5 minutes isn't comedy, it's a band-aid for an under-running script.