Family Guy: Season 8 Episode 1 Review
Written by Brando Calrissian on September 30, 2009
Wow. Finally. Family Guy returned to form and then some in the season 8 premiere which originally aired on Sunday Sept. 27. Not only was this episode hilarious, I might even go so far as to say it was one of my all time favorites. After last season’s underwhelming lineup (including the supremely awful and worst episode of all time: The Juice is Loose) it was so nice to see Family Guy strike back with something a little more fresh and dare I say subtle.
Perhaps subtle isn’t even the right word. Let me explain: for years we’ve been laughing at Family Guy’s penchant for beating its punchlines like a dead horse….then kicking said dead horse…then throwing the dead horse repeatedly against the wall until you’re uncomfortable…then going back to kicking the dead horse…until you reach a point where you laugh because you can’t believe they’re actually dragging out the punchlines so long. Unfortunately it’s a gimmick that doesn’t always work and certainly needs to be reined in a little bit. Not only did last season feature the worst episode in the whole series, but also featured the worst segment ever (not surprisingly it was within the Juice is Loose episode). In the episode they cut to a real clip of Conway Twitty singing his boring, shabby, and drab country music that lasted nearly FIVE minutes! For a show that only runs around 22 minutes per episode, 5 minutes is a huge portion of that…not to mention 5 long, boring, and excruciating minutes of Conway Twitty. Keep in mind, also, that they’ve used Twitty footage before! In the past they were funny. You cut to a random clip of some dude in the 70s singing crappy country music for a few seconds and are left laughing at not only the terrible clip but also the randomness of it. BUT FIVE WHOLE MINUTES? Waste of time.
Wow. Talk about tangential rant. Anyway, that clip pretty much summed up Season 7 for me. No longer using the awkward drawing out of jokes as a clever gimmick, but rather now insulting the viewer’s intelligence by shoving every single joke down our throats and repeating what it means just to make sure we got how funny it was. Ugh.
Road to the Multiverse skimps out on these moments almost entirely, though, which is so amazingly nice to see. There are visual gags that are just there for you to laugh at rather than having the characters point them out to you. Take for instance the sequence in which the characters are teleported to a dimension where everything is illustrated and animated by Disney. First off it’s brilliant and hilarious and an amazingly clever joke because it’s done so well. It doesn’t even make fun of Disney so much as it just uses the viewers familiarity with Disney and automatically you know where they are. The ultimate subtle visual gag, though, comes in the form of Meg having a massive, ugly, black octopus body much akin to Ursula from The Little Mermaid and having just a disgustingly ugly face. Nobody says a single word throughout the whole segment about Meg’s monsterous form, though; it’s just there for you to see and get the joke…especially if you’ve been watching the show for a while and know how they use Meg. Great stuff.
Really there aren’t many lowpoints. The high points are aplenty, though. For those that understand that Family Guy is crude and will take jabs at any and everyone and are okay with that, you’ll probably get a kick out of the episode right off the bat when Chris wins a homosexual at the carnival that feeds off of attention. The jokes here are rapid fire, though. Mayor Adam West floating away after revealing he is made of 95% helium, Stewie’s genetically perfect muscle pig (OINK), and once they start exploring the multiverse the fun really gets going.
Rather than continue my review and recount every single universe they travel to and drone on and on about them, I will just list some highlights from the episode. Let me know what you thought of the Family Guy debut by leaving a comment or heading to the discussion forums!
-Brando Calrissian
Highlights:
*Nyquil Cold-Flu-and-Aids for Quagmire in the technologically advanced universe.
*A buxom and genetically perfect Meg is still the ugliest woman around. Stewie explains to Brian “If you saw Lois you’d have to put your penis in a wheelchair”
*”One poop removal” “Whoah. Did I just go poop?”
*Great rip on the Flintstones and its use of stone age puns and laugh tracks.
*The Japanese segment = comedy gold. So wrong, but so funny.
*The only good part of the twoheaded universe = Stewie making out with himself in the corner.
*Brian’s poop from the technology universe ends up being in the ice age universe. Also his cross dog/human characteristics are used quite nicely. Subtle jokes about dogs, their blind faith in their master, and their color blindness.
*The entire Disney universe is hilarious. Everything about it was just spot on.
*The Robot Chicken universe is a GREAT joke. It’s brief, and doesn’t explain to you why it’s funny…but if you know that Seth Green is the voice of Chris Griffin and also the man behind Robot Chicken you’ll catch the depths and layers of funny within this segment.
*”That jokes not in bad taste, right?” “Meh, who cares!? He’s a cheeseburger!”
*”Love it.” “Hate it.” – “Hate it.” “Love it.”
*Taking the piss out of political cartoons and how incomprehensible they are.
*Okay I’ll stop. I seriously could keep going. It’s all so rapid fire that it just lends itself to clever wit rather than dead horse pummeling and expects you, the viewer, to keep up. It’s great. It’s a shame we won’t be getting more of this since it will be moving back to plot driven format by next week I’m sure. So long as they refrain from letting the Juice loose again, maybe we’ll be okay.
At any rate, here’s to hoping the rest of the season keeps me laughing as much as this opener did!
