Family Guy: S08E04 – “Hannah Banana”
Written by Brando Calrissian on November 10, 2009It’s a good thing I turned off the Seth MacFarlane Almost Live Comedy Show or whatever the heck it was called. It was groan worthy and I think had I stuck through it and then watched Family Guy I would have been too salty to enjoy it.
Luckily I changed channels from The Almost Live, but Definitely Lame Comedy Show so it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the latest episode of Family Guy, entitled, “Hannah Banana.”
Though not uproariously funny, I thought this was a very good episode. Rather than having one major plot and one or two side plots I thought this episode played off as more of two side by side main plots. The first plot involves Chris’s evil closet monkey being captured by Chris and presented to his family when nobody believes him that the evil monkey exists. Long a running gag in Family Guy, the evil monkey to me seems like good material to focus on here. There’s been nearly a decade of reference to the evil monkey through the series’ run so anyone even remotely familiar with Family Guy will have a little more vested interest in what’s going on. The fact that the evil monkey has been built up for so long also makes the impact of the irony a lot greater. The evil monkey, of course, turns out to be quite friendly and even caring. There are some very humorous montages with Chris and the monkey bonding together and becoming like a father and son team. There are elements of the evil monkey that almost play off like New Brian (the replacement dog from an episode of Season 7), but I think for the most part they stay in fresh territory. All in all I liked this plot and thought it played well.
The second plot once again involves Brian and Stewie adventure more as companionate friends rather than the enemies they sometime are, and I tend to like their chemistry together…so this was a good thing. Brian happens to catch Stewie watching Hannah Montana and gives him a hard time about it. Stewie at first denies any interest in Hannah Montana but soon is overwhelmed by his adoration for her (and her show) and can no longer hold it in; copping the truth to Brian. When Stewie finds out Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus is to tour in Quahog, he enlists Brian to help him get backstage to meet her. From her it all goes pretty well; Stewie meets her and they have a nice little joke about Stewie being a baby with cancer (“he has a tumor the size of a football!” Brian explains), and Miley welcomes Stewie as a friend and they even perform a song together. At this point this plot was beginning to lose me as there isn’t a whole lot of comedic material beyond Stewie’s unabashed love for Miley Cyrus. I figured it would play out on just that note, but what happened next was brilliant. It’s revealed that Miley Cyrus is actually an android; the product of Disney imagineering designed to be the perfect teen idol, and from there this plot takes off. Stewie tries to re-wire Miley Cyrus to ditch her chaste teen idol ways and allow Brian to enjoy a more carnal relationship with her, but accidentally screws things up and Miley soon short circuits and because something of a Terminator. Seeing Miley Cyrus with superhuman strength and roaring “MILEY SMASH” is comic gold in my opinion.
They also did a nice thing by having the two plots come together at the end of this one. There’s a sequence which is a very obvious, yet still enjoyable, reference to King Kong (roll reversal this time, of course)…and I think it wraps everything up quite nicely. Some of the visuals in the aerial strike scene are actually pretty engaging. I was surprised to find myself impressed by the visuals of a cartoon, but hey, that’s part of the fun I guess!
All in all like I said it was a very good episode. Nothing epic or game changing, but definitely shows that Family Guy may yet have some gas left in the tank
