When Family Guy originally premiered back 2000, my initial feelings towards the animated show were that of extreme adoration. I was an immature high schooler who soon began spreading the term relating to this new "Simpsons-esque" cartoon which was somehow falling through the cracks. Following the show was cancelled, I was among the millions of people who purchased the first two DVD volumes, which ultimately result in Fox resurrecting the show.
I had both a Peter Griffin t-shirt in addition to a Stewie one, and I wore them with pride. At parties, my friends and I would play "Drink the Beer" where when we drank our beer, we won...another beer! So when Family Guy premiered on Fox again in 2005 after that initial cancellation, I was happier then Quagmire in a Vietnamese brothel.
But ever ever since then, I slowly started initially to drift away from Family Guy. Episode after episode, the writing started initially to suffer and the show lost more and more structure. Once a great blend of outrageous humor, offensive material and vulgarity, Family Guy now was more centered on being absurd then being funny. I grew fed up with the epic battles between Peter and the Chicken or the musical numbers by the child-molesting elderly neighbor, Herbert. And I really learned to loath the out-of-nowhere live-action Conway Twitty performances. kickassanime (Seriously, does any Family Guy fan locate them funny? I'd want to know.)
Which brings us to 2009, where my estimation on Family Guy can best be described by that of Lois Griffin's opinion on her behalf husband. She loves him and always will though his stupidity could possibly get so overbearing that she feels as though she's wasting her time. Sure, she may do better and sometimes wishes she did. But in the long run, the nice times outnumber the bad times, which results in her decision to faithfully uphold his side.
And that is the way in which I experience the recently released Family Guy: Volume Seven. A number of it's good, a number of it's bad, but when it's all said and done, you'll laugh a lot more than you'll sigh despite these episodes being fully a far cry from the classic Family Guy that I fell in love with.
Of Volume Seven's thirteen episodes, not too many of them stand out as great television. Due to the show's structure, you are able to only really a cure for funny moments and dialogue to appear sporadically throughout each episode. The infamous cutaway gags/flashbacks that Family Guy is indeed well-known for may also be pretty hit-or-miss. Ones like the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion getting pissed at Dorothy because she admitted she would skip the Scarecrow most of all right in front of them are hysterical. But then you get ones like the Shouting-Arab Gram Business that completely fall flat.
An enormous perk of purchasing this DVD rather than simply watching the in-patient episodes on television is the profanity that gets sprinkled in all the episodes by the creators. I have to admit, it's pretty hilarious hearing each person in the cast drop an F-bomb one or more times, especially Stewie. Other special features that are included on the DVDs are deleted scenes and commentaries by the show's creators.
A featurette entitled "Family Guy Cribz" got my hopes up that they'd parody the MTV show Cribs with a few of the show's hottest characters take us on a tour of their residence (How funny could Quagmire's have already been?). Instead, I acquired a real documentary on Family Guy's production offices in Los Angeles and the people that work there, which only left me wishing I worked for Family Guy. Finally, Volume Seven comes with a sneak peak of Fox's new spin-off series The Cleveland Show where Stewie takes the words right out of my mouth. "What the hell? He's getting his own show?"
No matter Family Guy's slow decline in quality, I still find myself laughing out loud at these newer episodes. The characters remain enjoyable to view and I will always be keen on the show's immature nature. Family Guy: Volume Seven is not just a waste of time by any means, I just hope that by the time Volume Eight comes around, we visit a Family Guy that doesn't have to invest a whole episode of Peter singing The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" just to squeeze fun out of us.
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