Seth Green

Now that the show is back, Family Guy seems to have lost some of its appeal. It was different and somewhat shocking when it first became an underground hit, but now it is just getting a little bit old. It is still funny, but it just seems a little bit too contrived at this point. Or maybe the random humor is just getting old. The writers on the show seem to understand this and in the latest installment in the DVD collection there is an obvious shift in the episodes. The usual flashbacks to the past which are inspired by a comment from one of the characters, often leading in with “This is worse than the time that...” or some variation to that, has been cut back a great deal. To replace these tired tricks there are many more pop culture references, often even placing the Family Guy characters in different mediums or ripping foreign characters out of their own environment and into The Family Guy. When this doesn’t work they just go for shock value, which is apparent by the first episode on the collection which attacks censors of the borderline humor on the show.

The shock value begins with the first episode in which Peter is so angered by the watered down television thanks to the FCC, he starts his own television station with everything offensive he can possibly think to put on air. This is the height of the absurd offensive nature of the show, but episodes following do their best to keep up. Although shock continues in episodes such as “The Father, The Son and The Holy Fonz”, in which Peter starts his own religion (are we beginning to see a pattern in the minds of the writers) based upon the teaching of Fonzie from “Happy Days”, the most successful humor of the show comes from the pop culture references. Seth Green must have learned this from working on the show and took this idea to greater lengths in his own show, Robot Chicken. Tackling religion and gay marriage is fine, but the best episodes are more like “Petergeist”, a bizarre spoof of Spielberg’s classic horror film that actually pays more homage to the source material than you might expect from Family Guy. There is also great guest starring role by Frank Sinatra Jr. in “Brian Sings and Swings”, who also provides insight on the commentary track that each episode is adorned with.

Along with commentary tracks there is an onslaught of other special features. For certain episodes there is an optional censored audio track if you aren’t a fan of hearing the obscenities screamed out by Stewie. Fortunately the uncensored element of the DVD is sparse and never wasted away needlessly. Whenever there is language it is usually for effect, and for anyone used to watching the show on television it might come as a surprise the first couple of times. There are also multi-angle scene studies on four of the episodes and over forty deleted scenes on the third disc in the three disc set. If you are really a die-hard fan of the show there are three featurettes, including one that gives audiences a tour of The Family Guy Office.