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Family Guy is an American animated television series about a nuclear family in the suburbs of Quahog (IPA [kowhɔg] or [kowhɒg]), Rhode Island. It was created by Seth MacFarlane for FOX in 1999. Family Guy's humor is famous, or even sometimes infamous, for its use of non sequiturs, usually in the form of flashbacks. The show was cancelled once in 2000 and again in 2002, but strong DVD sales and the large viewership of reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim convinced FOX to resume the show in 2005. It is the first cancelled show to be resurrected based on DVD sales.[1]
HistoryFamily Guy's first and second seasons were made starting in 1999 after Larry shorts (its predecessor) caught the attention of the Fox Broadcasting Company during the 1999 Super Bowl commercial. Its cancellation was announced, but then a shift in power at Fox and outcry from the fans led to a reversal of that decision and the making of a third season, after which it was canceled again. Reruns later on in the decade (Adult Swim) drove interest in the show up, and the DVD releases did quite well, selling over 2.2 million copies in one year and renewing network interest. Family Guy returned to production in 2004, making two more seasons (for a total of five) and a straight to DVD movie, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. The sixth season is in production to air in the fall of 2007, with a seventh season airing in the fall of 2008. CharactersMain charactersThe show revolves around the adventures of Peter Griffin, a bumbling but well-intentioned blue-collar worker. Peter is an Irish-American Catholic with a thick Rhode Island / Eastern Massachusetts accent. During the course of the series, he discovers he is part African-American and has been known to have Spanish, Mexican, Scottish, and German ancestors. He is known for his trademark laugh. His wife Lois, who has a similar accent, is a stay-at-home mom/piano teacher, and is a member of the Pewterschmidt family of wealthy Protestant socialites. Peter and Lois have three children: teenage daughter Meg Griffin, who is frequently the butt of jokes for her ugliness; goofy and low-intelligent teenage son Chris Griffin, in some respects a younger version of his father; and diabolically evil infant son Stewie Griffin, bent on world domination and the death of his mother. Stewie speaks fluently and eloquently, with an Upper Class English accent and stereotypical arch-villain phrases. Even though the family can hear Stewie's talk of world domination and of Lois' demise, all but Brian (the intellectual talking pet dog) hear his speech as baby gibberish. Brian is the only family member who understands Stewie, and doesn't treat him like an infant, although minor characters have conversed with Stewie in different episodes. Stewie refers to his mother and father as "Lois" and "the fat man" respectively. Brian is anthropomorphized in that he walks on two legs, drinks Martinis, owns his own car (a Toyota Prius, circa 2004) and engages in human conversation, though he is still considered a pet in many respects. Occasionally, Brian will act in a stereotypically canine manner, usually for comedic effect (such as his inability to stand up in the back of a car, chasing tennis balls, fear of vacuum cleaners and barking uncontrollably at black people—which he blames on his father's side of the family). He does, however, object to any overly submissive domestic behavior. Recurring characters
These characters include the Griffin family's colorful neighbors: paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson, his perpetually pregnant wife Bonnie, and sex-crazed airline-pilot bachelor Glenn Quagmire who lusts after Lois and just about any other female. When sexually enticed, Quagmire exclaims, "Giggity-giggity-goo", or "All right!" with his trademark head-bob. Other characters include mild-mannered deli owner Cleveland Brown, his wife (ex-wife as of the fourth-season episode The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire) Loretta Brown and their hyperactive son, Cleveland Jr. (who hasn't appeared since Season 3, except briefly in the funeral scene in 'Perfect Castaway'), news anchors Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons along with "Asian Reporter Trisha Takanawa and Ollie Williams with the Weather", and mentally ill celebrity mayor Adam West (actually voiced by Adam West, star of the 1960's TV show Batman).
There are also several semi-regular characters who serve as running gags. Examples include the Evil Monkey in Chris's closet; Herbert, the creepy old man who enjoys "watching" Chris; the Greased-Up Deaf Guy; Ollie Williams, the weather forecaster, who shouts everything he says in his "BlaccuWeather" forecast and appears to be an "angry black man" version of Al Roker; Jake Tucker, anchorman Tom Tucker's son (who has an upside-down face, and no 'bottom' i.e. buttocks); and Peter's nemesis the Giant Chicken (who originally poked fun at a Burger King commercial), whose fights with Peter parody Hollywood action films and usually cause huge amounts of damage to the city. The incarnation of Death (originally voiced by Norm MacDonald but now by Adam Carolla) has also made a number of appearances. EpisodesIn keeping with the humorous tone of the series, most episode titles of Family Guy are parodies of popular television shows, movies and slogans. For the first half of the first season, the writers tried to work the words "murder" or "death" into the title of every episode (e.g. Mind Over Murder and Death Has a Shadow) to make the titles resemble those of old-fashioned radio mystery shows. On a DVD commentary, creator Seth MacFarlane says that the writers stopped doing this when they realized they were beginning to get the titles confused and couldn't remember which title went with which episode. Beginning with A Hero Sits Next Door, the episodes featured titles descriptive of their plots. Family Guy also has different ratings (In both USA and UK) for each episode. In the UK, some episodes are rated 12 and others are rated 15 (censored episodes rated PG are shown before 9 p.m.). As in the USA, they range from TV-PG (some episodes), TV-14 (most episodes) and TV-MA (two episodes) on television. Since season four has been released, some episodes have not yet been aired in full on television because of the swearing or the pop culture references. They either have to cut the scene fully from the episode or re-edit it to be aired on television. CriticismRivalry with The SimpsonsImage:Mad458.jpg Cover of the October 2005 issue of Mad Magazine. Image:Madmagaus.jpg Cover of Issue 423 of Australian Mad Magazine. The Simpsons writing team has taken shots at Family Guy several times, including:
Seth MacFarlane has stated in interviews that he and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening have a friendly relationship despite the jabs from The Simpsons writing staff. In an AV Club interview, MacFarlane commented on the controversy:
The creators of Family Guy were able to make a couple of return jabs at The Simpsons:
In an April 2006 interview, Matt Groening revealed that the rivalry between Family Guy and The Simpsons is "very affectionate", complimenting MacFarlane and comparing the competition to The Addams Family and The Munsters in the 1960s.[3] Family Guy episode Brian the Bachelor featured the voice of Nancy Cartwright, best known as the actress providing the voice of Bart Simpson. Other CriticismsFamily Guy has been panned by certain television critics, most notably from Entertainment Weekly,[4] which was in turn attacked by MacFarlane during a scene in the straight-to-DVD movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. An earlier jab in the episode "There's Something About Paulie" featured Peter wiping his anus with an "Entertainment Weekly" magazine when there was no toilet paper available. Other cartoonists who have publicly criticized Family Guy include John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy, who argued that "If you're a kid wanting to be a cartoonist today, and you're looking at Family Guy, you don't have to aim very high... The standards are extremely low."[5] The show was mocked in a two-part episode of South Park,[6] in which characters called the show's jokes interchangeable, saying that they had no place in the storyline. In the two-part episode "Cartoon Wars," the writers of Family Guy were portrayed as manatees that moved various rubber "idea balls" inscribed with random topics (such as Gary Coleman or Mexico) into a giant bin that became the jokes written into each episode. A character similar to Bart Simpson is featured in the episode attempting to get Family Guy cancelled. But later, a character mentions to Kyle that he likes the random jokes and "At least it doesn't get all preachy and up its own ass with messages, you know?," referring to the tendency of South Park episodes to have an explicit moral. The Family Guy writing staff appears to use the phrase "manatee gags" for the "like that time I..." jokes in the show, as shown on the Season 4 DVD commentary. During his speech at the Harvard class day 2006, in character as Stewie Griffin, MacFarlane rebutted:
Music and music videoOn April 26 2005 Family Guy: Live in Vegas was released and was a collaboration between Walter Murphy and Seth MacFarlane. It features a show tune theme. Only one song is related to the show; the theme song. Also included was the music video "Sexy Party". Title sequenceThe title sequence in Family Guy does not vary, but small differences have occurred since the first episode in 2000:
PodcastA free podcast is available for MP3 download from the official site or from iTunes. Twenty-eight episodes have been released. On several of the podcasts, cast members talk about upcoming episodes and joke amongst themselves.[7] However this is only available from within the United States. BroadcastersReferences
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