How Family Guy's Biggest Weakness Became Its Strength
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- Опубліковано 23 чер 2022
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Fox's Family Guy has long been derided for its cutaway gags, but what if they're the reason the show has stuck around for so long? In this video I go over Seth Macfarlane's biggest hit.
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Special thanks to Andrew Elliott (Stalli111: / stalli111 ) for editing this video!
"I haven't felt this much appreciation since Captain Midnight covered us on his channel!"
You know this will make it to an episode very soon.
LOL
Peta, that just happened
Explain someone please?
@princeranjan3439 it's a family guy reference(they start all their cut-aways like this)
It's hard to believe that the Brian "death" episode aired ALL they way back in 2013, it feels like just yesterday the controversy started...
I skip the Brian's dead episodes when I rewatch the series.
@@lfroncek they really aren’t bad episodes when you know Brian is coming back, I actually kinda enjoyed the other dog, think his name was vinny
Speak for yourself
Did they remove him from the series I didnt know he died
What was the controversy about brain death?
For me Family Guy is the perfect show to just chuck on in the background while I’m playing a game or working on my computer, since there’s really not a story to follow episode to episode you can miss certain jokes or plot moments and still get enjoyment out of an episode. It’s definitely not my favourite show but it usually manages to get a laugh or two out of me when I’m actually paying attention.
My husband and I call those "wallpaper shows" and they're the best. Family Guy, American Dad, Bob's Burgers, The Office, Parks & Rec, Seinfeld, etc (and many more obv) are so perfect for comforting background noise you can tune in and out of while you do your stuff. The writing/storytelling is good enough to draw you in but the stakes are always soothingly low.
@@studiostyx7075 me ans my brother call it background noise, we'll randomly look up to see what happened then drift back into the laptops lmao
Say what you will, to me Seth Mc Farlane has, in Family Guy, created one of the funniest shows I have ever watched, and even though I can't stand a few of the more annoying characters in some of them (Roger from American Dad for instance), they have made me laugh and smile for many many countless hours. The show isn't meant to be as special or as endearing as the Simpsons, but sometimes it too, genuinely IS. It's not meant to be as meaningful in social commentary, but sometimes it hits the nail on the head like almost no other. I love Family Guy.
Side note: Thank God Hulu picked The Orville series up for another season after FOX didn't want to do a 3rd Season. This Star Trek parody is actually better then some Star Trek shows, and you can tell MacFarlane and his crew love making it, probably more so then he is about Family Guy these days.
Yes but the show is unwatchable crap now!
@@bltvd I think he's talking about the Orville, not Family Guy.
watch star trek strange new worlds, it’s pretty good
He just does the voices for family guy now he doesn’t have anything to do with the writing anymore
@@alextanner115 Thank you.
Family guy is a show made completely out of memes. That's why it works so well on UA-cam
It's not made completely of memes. It works off youtube. It has stories and it has running gags that have gone for two decades.
I think the best part about Family guy is how on the nose the jokes are, it makes for much better retelling. Also the fact that a lot of the jokes tend to be a lot darker than those explored by the Simpsons. It’s also not as heavily Satirical as South Park, which is a show that really doesn’t work if you don’t know what they’re making fun of.
I love that joke with Peter in the blimp, one of my absolute favorites :) Also, all of the Brian and Stewie Road To episodes are absolutely the stand out episodes of Family Guy. Almost every one of them are fantastic.
The golden rule of watching family guy:
If you’re watching family guy for the plot, you’re watching family guy wrong
*laughs in road to multiverse*
cough cough ls mark
I can watch Peter's chicken fights over-and-over again.
They go on for way too long and they did it way too many times
It's had some pretty low points, but I've liked the last couple of seasons. They finally stopped with the Meg-bashing and made everyone equally awful which helps.
I think it's more of an equality between all the characters. They rode the gag into the ground and kept beating it with Meg. Now they try to be sneaky about it with every character except Meg.
I will always love that scene where someone breaks in and Peter hits Meg with a bat as if he thought she was the intruder, even though she talked to him for like a whole 30 seconds before hand hahaha
@@inyrui that one does get me, and it wasn't *all* awful, but episodes where Peter is only nice to Meg when other people aren't watching got old fast. Having it more balanced now is much better.
The anti-woke, cancel culture whining, millennial bashing they added is definitely aging the show a lot though.
@BlackWorm what a weird choice season 5… show clearly peaked in its first run- and then got back to being at its top form (for the modern incarnation) about season 8/9ish… 4 sucked honestly, so I find 5 to be a weird choice.
I like to think that some of us ten year olds staying up and watching family guy helped bring it back, while I haven't always kept up with the show it does make me feel like I was part of something
It has been my go-to series for before I go to bed. It's what gets me to sleep
Same! for my naps too
Same
Same. I miss it on netflix :(
i watch it to bed too, and occasionally i laugh too, even when im almost passed out tired.
The one episode I consider to be Family Guy actually trying to be good, as well as one I’ll never forget, is the one where Stewie and Brian get stuck in a safe. I guess you could say Im a sucker for bottle episodes like that, especially in animation, but I just remember it being decently funny and then hits you hard with some emotional gut punches. That to me is what I wish family guy was, and what I was glad to get when I picked up Bojack Horseman and more recently Inside Job.
Dude that episode literally has a scene where brian eats out stewie’s ass
Yeah if it weren't for the gross out at the start that would be the perfect episode.
I've been watching full episodes in UA-cam I've never seen and I can't believe how funny this show still is
Would you mind sharing some of the channels? I don't feel like wasting money to watch one show I like
You can thank me for watching family Guy at 10 o'clock at night when I should have been in bed and then turning around and watching Futurama. 😉💙
🎶 Lucky there’s a Captainmidnight
Lucky there’s a man who positively can do videos on pop culture to make us laugh and fight
He’s a captain midnight
🎶
Seth has done great work in The Orville as well, which I see as the true modern iteration of Star Trek.
is it any good? i've passed it by on streaming services numerous times, i think it's on D+ right? considered it but never pressed play, you know how it is with the flood of content there is.
@@DennisGr it's really good, I haven't watched ST and don't really see the appeal but man The Orville is really good, it handles subjects which I never knew could exist. It's just that because it originally started at FOX as a parody of Star Trek so season 1 is focuses on humor first while season 2 is where the show matures into a better (appeal wise) version of ST. Season 3 is full of hype because it went on hiatus when fans wanted a continuation. I'm just saving it so I can binge it 😂.
@@DennisGr Season 1 and 2 are great but Season 3 not so much
If you haven't given them already, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the "CutawayLand" episode. I just think it's interesting that the cutaways were once so hated by everyone for "padding the runtime" or whatever, and now we have an episode literally dedicated to the concept, and how it exists in relation to the show
You are giving me major waves of nostalgia. I remember discovering the show in junior high when it premiered, and my friends and I pirating episodes off somebody's high-speed internet while we were in high school and just quoting it endlessly in class while nobody else had any idea what the hell we were talking about. Then the DVDs came out and I think all of us bought them because nobody wanted to give them up, and I watched the show religiously every day again and again. I think adult swim happened when I was in college and it was a nice little treat, and I definitely remember all of us throwing a party in college when the show came back. I have such a long history with this show and I think it's more personal than a lot of other people. Which is why it's kind of strange and two different ways. For one I don't really watch the show anymore because it's just gotten really terrible. I've also grown up in a lot of ways so I have other things to focus on. But it's also interesting to see the meteoric rise and popularity of the show and then the continued comfortable place it now holds in pop culture all despite the fact that it went for years with just a cult audience being the only people watching it. Call me a hipster, but I missed the Glory Days of when this show was pretty unknown and didn't become the sort of cringe spectacle that I think it is now. Like the kids who used to bully me for watching stuff like this are now the grown adults who buy T-shirts with Stewie on them, and I think that's all there is to say about that
It is wild to me that the most famous line for Family Guy "remember that time" was never or at least only said maybe a couple times through out it's on-going run.
Haven't even watched this video yet and I'm excited and gigity lol. Love when my fav channel talks about my fav show
The way I see it, Family guy is just a sketch show to me, where it has funny moments, and that’s about it.
Like there was an episode that featured quagmire getting convicted of statutory rape and the episode was narratively awful, but it featured one of the funniest things I’ve heard Peter say after Quagmire gets 20 years in prison:
“Don’t think of it as 20 years, think of it as two 10 year olds you sick freak”
I can agree with that. I kinda hate the whole show except for those odd lines and moments that make me double over laughing. Makes me angry but there it is.
I thinks its trying to be a reality TV show and sitcom but cartoon
@@BeeWhistler then how could you hate the show, if you find it funny, its a comedy and it made you laugh, so saying you hate it kinda contradicts that
Thanks for putting your sponsors at the end of the vid and not the beginning or middle like other channels
I always love hearing my favorite review people talk about each other in their videos
I am terminally online and have never seen a family clip compilation.
It’s funny how I used to see American Dad as the “worse version of Family Guy” when in reality it’s soooooo much better.
I can’t get past the hideous animation for either one.
@@BeeWhistler you think Family Guy and American Dad look hideous? Brickelberry and Mr. Peanut make those shows look like Pixar movies in comparison
Family Guy has always been a 25 minute game of mad-libs with a plot weaved between it
And we all love it for that, ain't nothing wrong with that. Other shows have those other bases covered, Family Guy does its own thing
I watched some of the newest episodes of Family Guy and i was pleasantly surprised at how funny they were. They were actually really good
Family Guy has had their low points in the later seasons, but there's no denying their format of humor has worked out well in the internet age.
The issue I have with South Park is that sometimes they build entire episodes on a few jokes and if the jokes aren't funny or fall flat, it's painful to sit through. With Family Guy if a joke flops, you know there's a completely different one bereft of episode context coming in a few seconds.
Man, I wish you would do longer essay videos so bad lol. You videos are done so well and whenever post something I'm always excited to tune and see what's up.
Man Lois this is worse than the time I was in a Captain Midnight video essay!
Honestly I don’t care what anyone says Family Guy is still one of my favourite things to watch. If I just want 20 mins of guaranteed laughs Family Guy will always be my go to
Thank you. I don't care what flaws it has. You can't tell me it's not entertaining.
Guaranteed? Uh are you talking about the new seasons? Cause that’s a red flag.
@@The420BrownKid I’ve enjoyed pretty much every season. In fact unpopular opinion but I always found the first couple seasons a bit boring imo😂
@@BigPurp9 lol fair enough.
Family Guy guarantees two or three laughs per season
I love that u referenced nerdstalgic, u two r my go to channels!
Weirdly enough late last year I stumbled on a compilation of Peter's crouch and bag of nickels. I have now seen this video over seventy times since. It's true the show can be even better on UA-cam. Thanks for justifying another one of my guilty pleasures!
This dynamic is similar to the meme-ability of Spongebob. There's a clip or screenshot for seemingly every occasion.
for me, the reason family guy is best is the quote McFarlane gae in the 200th episode. "we have ne er tried to do anything other than make you laugh as often and hard as possible". and they meant it
every other show has to balance jokes. they still need a plot, consistent characters and good resolutions...they are telling a story, a funny one but a story
family guy said no to all that.. nothing before the joke...even if the jokes are bad, count how many are in an episode. u just get more jokes.
I've seen so many UA-cam shorts of family guy clips it is an absolute phenomenon
2:40 wow that is exactly what happened. I’ve been watching your content since Infinity War but this video wasn’t recommended to me until just now when I was trying to find a family guy clip
Not that anyone asked but my personal favourite part of Family Guy is the characters. I like the fact that almost every character is both very realistic and absolutely insane. Look at someone like Stewie. Obviously, the fact that a baby is an evil genius is the crazy bit but at the same time, Stewie acts like a baby. He experiences things I remember experiencing, such getting scared by something extremely dumb like an album cover, having a best friend that’s a teddy bear, nappy changes etc. I remember small things like that from my childhood and I had similar thoughts to Stewie (except for the evil genius ones)
Great video!
7:49
Lmao what are Max and Chad doing here 😂😂😂
my favourite episodes are "La Famiglia Guy" and the Panama episode where Peter ends up in a coma. interestingly enough they are both episodes with only 1 plot. I dont remember how cutaway heavy they are though
I still live in a house with cable TV and one channel is nothing but family guy reruns seemingly all hours. It's perfect background for when I'm working and honestly the voices make me laugh
In 2006 network TV there was no other show that relied on cutaways and pop culture references like family guy.
*laughs in Scrubs*
@A Catalan Liam I can't do this all on my own...
@A Catalan Liam What did Google
say?
@@CaptainTae He is no superman.
@@finnbrophy6830 dooooooooweeeeeeeeoooooooooooweeeeeeeoooooooo. He’s no Superman.
I hate how fast I jumped on this link
love how you included the fan-made Cold Ones cameo lol
I'd honestly put the best of seasons 1 and 2 up there with the best of The Simpsons. It's what makes seasons 4+ so tragic
2006/7 youtube was blocked at school but we used to use this other site that had flash games and videos but also clips from family guy. Funny scenes like "the farting competition" and "the electric company, f-at, fat".
Adult swim era was peak family guy. Around brians death was the time it took that shift.
Loved the fact that you snuck in the Cold Ones.
I listen to family guy to fall asleep every night and some of my earliest memories are watching Hulu clips on UA-cam of Family Guy. This hit home.
Family guy is one of my all time favorite shows, my comfort show at this point
I remember a Mad Magazine Simpsons/Family Guy crossover and there was a cut away gag that Meg points out rather pointedly
i never hated Family Guy, i just haven't always been happy with its jokes, same with South Park, or Robot Chicken, etc. i don't think any of these shows, even the Simpsons, is perfect (though it i haven't watched in many years), i just think they each have their own style or vibe, and the quality isn't always there, to me, none of them is nearly as good as they once were, i no longer watch any of them myself
Good Attitude.
@@chadliampearcy i do my best, i think that's all anyone can do :)
@@professorbaxtercarelessdre1075 You don't have to do your best. Just have a hero to look up to.
@@chadliampearcy haven't had one of those since i was a child, and back then it was Batman, but he doesn't exist, so i'm out of luck on that one lol
@@professorbaxtercarelessdre1075 Batman is a fine ideal. A Man of Restraint and Shadows. Just pick a General, Solider, Warrior, Fighter or Martial Art Master if you want someone real. You know fiction and art, should show the best and worst of ourselves, it isn't just unreal.
I would definitely not agree that the writing is lazy. For example take a look at the Sci-fi episodes of Brian and Stewie and the jokes for the most part are unexpected and brilliant because it includes both stereotypes & ingenuity. It includes Dark humour, good style and a great set of character representation.
The writing isn't always lazy, but it often is.
Yacht Rocky is enough to prove they're still pretty lazy when it comes to writing.
you know, some times when i'm watching family guy comps, i stumble on a south park rpg game speedrun.
Great Video
“Who wants chowder?” was one of the first UA-cam videos I ever saw
holy crap lois a new captainmidnight video
It's funny how Family Guy (lovingly) joked about Robot Chicken's sketch comedy style when that is, as you brought up, the shows strength
I WAS around when YT started and although I don’t know which is the first clip uploaded, the first one I looked up was “Shipoopie”
family guy has a lot of ups and downs, but its still pretty decent
tbh it always felt really ironic to me to see South Park say that another show relying on pop culture references is a crutch or lazy
South Park has a lot of pop culture jokes, but I have two counter arguments for that. One, its targets are primarily the modern political climate and general American society. Two, the show isn’t afraid to admit that that’s its biggest selling point, whereas Family Guy mostly tries to convince its audience that it’s another Simpsons, just raunchier and with actual white people.
I really enjoyed the original run of family guy the most but the first 5 seasons of its 2nd run was great also, it along with futurama and king of the hill all hold a special place in my heart from its early time on adult swim as a little 7-8 yr old kid staying up late watching it in secret from my parents😂
I remember being at the Boys & Girls Club in the early 2000s and seeing someone receive a video of Peter singing a parody of Can't Touch This in the computer lab. I'd say it's one of the earliest memes I can remember.
Thumbs up purely for the Buffy mention.
I definitely didn't get Family Guy clips unless I went looking. But I bet this video changes that lol.
Family guy is still one of my favorite shows sure is it past its time in some areas maybe but still love it .
I grew up on family guy and it def shaped my humor. It's not my favorite show these days. It's getting back into favor for me but around season 13, I was almost done watching it. Glad to see it back to it's old form.
Most of my time on UA-cam during the mid to late 2000's were spent either on watching anime episodes (cut into 3 parts) or watching Family Guy cutaway compilations.
It’s true. I wouldn’t say Family Guy clips made UA-cam or anything, but they were a HUGE part of it blowing up.
"Family Guy" has been bad *way* longer than it was good but I can't pretend that I don't still enjoy it! 😆
This age well, especially the fact there's a lot of Family Guy clips on UA-cam shorts.
I still have the first 5 seasons, seasons 7, 10, and s few single releases on DVD. I've always liked Family Guy over the Simpsons, just my opinion.
I firmly believe that the internet is why Family Guy is still being produced. It works so well with todays short attention spans.
I remember the DVD's being passed around and late night family guy. To anyone under 25 at the time it was bizarre the show got canceled.
Yeah. It was very popular among my friends in university, but they mostly watched it by downloading episodes off of Kazaa. They weren't staying at home on a Thursday night to watch it. I think that Futurama, Arrested Development and Community all struggled for similar reasons.
The newer episodes are still really hit and miss, one episode has me laughing like crazy the next barely makes me chuckle
This show was my fave adult show but it’s been years since then
Literally two videos down is a family guy short recommendation about a random topic: marriage.
I had something like volume 3 on dvd and that's how I started watching family guy. I eventually started watching the new episodes on tv and now I watch them on Disney +. I never knew what season I was watching though haha
I remember having these roommates that summed Family Guy up in the most accurate description: They said it was visual junk food with 0 substance to back it up. I could not agree with them anymore than I do now
The wonder years was the original cutaway show.
I really think it's just that their collective sense of humor is quirky... the writers, I mean. And I will also say that after all this time those characters are among my all time most beloved. Its like: in watching them do nothing in a seemingly random manner you get attached. Not a bad vid thx man 😁
Don't forget family guy died and was revived when they put shows on DVD
People expect every TV show to be a masterpiece of plot subtleties and grand overarching narratives that provide deep insight into the human condition and the nature of morality, I like family guy partly because it doesn't try to be this constantly, and instead just tries to make jokes, thats all I want from a show sometimes
Family Guy always seemed more like a sketch comedy show than a sitcom.
I'm a Seth McFarland fan, always enjoy his ups and downs! He's always creating, and that takes stride and humiliation!
Who remembers the original Steve and Larry which was the forerunner to FG and aired on the What A Cartoon! programming block
I remember the clip of brian doing peanut butter jelly time really blew up on early youtube
Family Guy season 20 actually has them acting like a family and the characters are consistent. you gotta like that they know what they wanna do with these characters
7:16
It is my guilty pleasure mostly because of UA-cam
I swear somebody is paying UA-cam to shove family guy clips in my face. I have never even watched one because I dont want my entire UA-cam feed to be family guy but they still show up
The one reason I held Family Guy in high regard was because it meant it wasn't a School night and I could stay up late watching adult swim. That's when I could say FG was my favorite show. But that was before they killed off Brian for a few episodes. Idk when the decline of FG started but it had to around 2011/2012/2013. After that point, the show really didn't have the same charm as early FG.
Its funny, when i first started using youtube in 2009, the first videos i would search were clips of family guy
Brian died in 2013…… good god I’m getting old
Holy crap! Max and Chad from Cold Ones! 7:49
I loved the cutaway jokes. Its sad that they are gone now. No thanks to the people who complained about them.
Nah they are still there
Good point. If the episode itself doesn't make my laugh, there is a good chance the cutaways will.
Huh now you mention it I actually found family guy through a youtube clip of Stewie doing gymnastics 12+ years ago.
I find Family Guy the perfect show to watch when drunk, or just really tired, which is partly why it works late night. I have noticed they've leaned into being a stoner show more, too.