To this point in my brief BWE blogging stint, I have refrained from sharing my feelings about “Family Guy” for two main reasons. 1 – While I personally can’t watch the show anymore, I have no ill will towards my many friends who still watch it and talk about how funny it is that Stewie sang the “Mr. Belvedere” theme. 2 – If I complain about “Family Guy”, people invariably ask me what I do like, and no matter what I answer (um, I like ‘The Office,’ why?) they tell me that thing sucks, and I don’t know sh*t, etc.
That being said, last night’s hour-long “Star Wars” parody was the lowest low point in the history of lowness for the show I vaguely recall enjoying many years ago. A non-topical double-length parody of “Star Wars”, just months after “Robot Chicken” did one, and just years after “South Park” parodied both “Episode 1″ and the Lucas reissues, and just decades after “Spaceballs” and “The Muppet Show”, complete with impossibly stomach-turning sequences in which the molestor neighbor (remember when he was funny in that one episode in Season 3? Well now they use him in pretty much every episode) does a lengthy song and dance sequence to “Time of My Life” from “Dirty Dancing” (remember that movie??? ridiculous!!!), a joke about Angelina Jolie retreating to Africa, the Cleveland-voiced R2D2 character making a racist menthol cigarettes joke, and about fifteen sequences in which the characters literally explain why a certain part in “Star Wars” is kind of unrealistic. I did mention that “Star Wars” came out thirty years ago and has been parodied by every remotely comedic endeavor in the history of print, tv, and film ever since, right? Ok, cool.
However, the hackiness of today’s “Family Guy” runs way deeper than just its decision to parody “Star Wars.” At this point, the references in the show aren’t even parodies, or jokes, or in any way insightful, creative, or not a complete waste of time. During the final Death Star battle, the Griswold family drove by in a flying wood-panelled Wagon, and literally did the dialogue from the St. Louis scene in “National Lampoon’s Vacation” verbatim, ending with Clark saying “roll ‘em up!” after the car got hit by laser crossfire. That’s not a joke. It’s not insightful, or in any way satirical, or creative, it’s just a thing that happened in a movie. It is literally a line from “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” and they are reminding you of it. The movie totally happened!! Remember, everyone?? Pointing out that fact equals a joke, right?
After the jump, a 20 second clip that sums up my entire argument:
Their attempts at political satire are so consistently hacky and dull, I often cannot imagine how any writers could possibly be anything other embarrassed. The Empire’s star cruiser has a Bush / Cheney sticker on it, the right-wing radio personality complains about about Lando benefitting from affirmative action; if someone suggested these ideas at a “Daily Show” writer’s meeting, they’d be fired and laughed out of the room. Are people actually sitting there saying “YES!!! Finally, someone had the guts to stick it to Bush!!!” Not to mention their biting jabs at Danny Elfman, the band Simply Red, and Mrs. Fields’ cookies, among others. F*ck you, Danny Elfman, and your completely satisfactory cinematic scores!
I could go on forever, and I realize that I am exposing myself to inevitable comments pointing out specific things that I’ve written which are stupid, and that’s natural, but watching this thing last night made me physically weaker, and I know I’m not the only one out there. In case you missed the premiere and don’t feel like spending an hour with your jaw on the floor as you stand in awe of how something that was once quirky and enjoyable can somehow be so simultaneously insulting and pointless, just watch this one clip. This joke, which definitely wasn’t in the movie “Wayne’s World” in 1992, sums up the last three years of “Family Guy” in twenty seconds. It is simply dumbfounding.
