Why Family Guy Sucks

Okay, maybe “sucks” isn’t the right word...but then again, maybe it is. How ‘bout this: Family Guy is just not funny.

First, a little background. I don’t remember exactly when Family Guy started, but when it did, I didn’t watch it. I suspect I just didn’t want to invest the time and energy into yet another TV show. For a long time, I’ve felt that I watched too much crap on TV as it is.

For quite a few years now, various people have mentioned Family Guy  to me, and when I said I didn’t watch it (or until about 3 years ago had never seen it) they suggested that I would really like it. So when I finally watched a few episodes (unusual little side note: the first 3 or 4 times I watched it, it was the same episode) I just didn’t think it was funny. So when I mentioning this lack of funny to people who would recommend it, they suggested that I just hadn’t seen the “right” episodes. Well, I really don’t have much interest in sifting through an entire series of mediocre episodes just to find the “right” ones. One person even mentioned some incident or reference in an episode that recurred several seasons later and that it was just amazingly hilarious. But again, I’m not gonna wade through a lot of crap to find a few moments of hilarity. Especially not when I can find other shows that I actually consistently like.

I haven’t watched many episodes, but just today (technically, yesterday) I gave it another try. I even watched “Blue Harvest”, the Star Wars episode. I’m a Star Wars fan. I love it, but I also recognize how fertile an area it is for parody. So I held on to some hope (a new hope?) for that episode. There were some humorous moments. But they were relatively few and far between.

So... Here is why I think Family Guy just isn’t funny.

Now, I’m assuming it’s supposed to be a comedy. It feels like a comedy. And from what I have seen, Family Guy does what most sit coms do (which I hate): for much of its comedy it relies on characters doing something stupid or telling a lie and then doing more stupid things or telling more lies to keep other characters from finding out about the original stupid thing/lie.

The thing is, I just don’t think that being stupid &/or lying is funny. Or admirable. Certainly not something we should be putting out there over and over, being done by “the beautiful people” so that we media consumers/sheep admire it.

The other thing that Family Guy relies on for humor is random references. But the problem is that when random stuff happens, it's just random stuff. It's like comedy for people with ADD. Or people who are high.

“Look here’s some random reference! If you’re much younger than us, the people writing this show, you probably won’t have a clue what we’re referring to. But that’s okay, ‘cause even if you did know the reference, it’s still not actually funny. We’re just hoping for that ‘Oh I recognize that’ reaction which people might misinterpret as funny or good.”

But I tell you, people, simply recognizing something doesn’t make it funny or good. (There could be a whole other blog in here about people wanting what they know, and how that can be dangerous. I was just thinking about that tendency today, and it’s political ramifications. But back to Family Guy’s randomness. ) There's no payoff, no later call-back of the random stuff. 

Now, (by way of contrast,) I do like South Park. Yes, it’s crude. Yes, it shows children being rude and disrespectful to everyone, et cetera.  But it’s not really a show for kids. The same is true of The Simpsons, and those shows shouldn’t be marketed in any way as kid-friendly programming. When real-life kids act that way, it’s appalling. And their parents should be punished for allowing them to get that way.

Anyway, I certainly recognize the similarities between South Park and Family Guy. They’re both animated series, for adults (South Park more so) which have a lot of popular culture and historical references. Both sometimes seem random, HOWEVER in South Park the random stuff almost always comes back in the story in some significant way.

I like unpredictability, spontaneity, random references. But in a dramatic or comedic work, which someone has put effort into, to shape it into something better-crafted than an improvisation, the unpredictability (et cetera) should eventually result in a sense of inevitability, or payoff. In other words, it shouldn’t just be some random shit thrown out there because it just came to mind. The creators should take responsibility for what they put out there, and make it worth our time to watch. Don’t just throw whatever nonsense comes babbling out of your brain at us. I know that people are stupid, but don’t pander to the stupidity. Make a little more effort.

That’s all I’m asking: don’t just throw random crap at us and tell us it’s funny. Put some effort into writing, people.