Family Guy/American Dad

Recently watched family guy season 5 and american dad season 2 dvds and feel they are rubbish compared to the previous episodes (especially family guy season 5). I used to think they were very funny cartoons but they seem to have gone downhill lately, is it just me with this opinion?

I'm not a fan of either, but if I had to choose, I've found myself watching American Dad and thinking it's not too bad, whereas Family, I don't like.

So with me, American Dad is the lesser of two evils.

Lee's odd though.

I know what you mean about FG5 (I assume you're going by the British DVDs there though, in which case it's just the second part of S4) though. I don't think they'd quite got back into the 'swing' of it after those few years' break. Hopefully it'll improve again.

Yeah the british dvds, it is dodgy the way they are releasing them in 2 halfs and making out they are seperate seasons!

Yes, I blame ignorant Yank viewers. Fox broadcast the first 11 (I think) episodes around May-ish onwards, and then took a break during the traditional summer low-viewing-figures-season, and started again in October-ish. Despite being clearly listed as the 12th episode in season 4 on the official FG website, many started calling it a fifth season. Idiots. Anyway, God knows how, but this seems to have worked its way to our DVDs. Highly annoying, but what can you do? *sigh*

Quote: Martin Bickle @ August 21, 2007, 11:41 PM

Recently watched family guy season 5 and american dad season 2 dvds and feel they are rubbish compared to the previous episodes (especially family guy season 5). I used to think they were very funny cartoons but they seem to have gone downhill lately, is it just me with this opinion?

I think they have tried to do too much. FAMILY GUY go tcancelled and was brought back due to the DVD sales, but then I think MacFarlane wanted to have an 'out' incase this happened again. So he created, rather too quickly, American Dad, which is like the opposite of family guy, certainly the characters are juxtopposed to each other, the families are essentially the same structure but from another angle. The only real difference is Roger the Alien, who obviously is there to sort of garner interest from the 'aliens among us' community'.

I like both of them, but the ideas for things like this need to be a little less 'Oh this is worse than that time I XXX' or 'Remember when y did z,' and then cutaway to an entirely separate joke. To me, although most of these are funny, some of them go on WAY TOO LONG and it also detracts from the show itself. While it's something cartoons can do with relatively little extra work or budget, the word 'filler' comes to mind in most of tehse cases.

I agree, Family Guy tries too hard and its become formulaic to say the least with all the "this is worse than..." bits. (Anyone see the south park episode where they claimed that family guy was written by manatees?) I quite liked the first three seasons, bought the dvds and everything, but for some reason when it came back it just started to kind of irritate me. The way my siblings got obsessed with it and incessantly quoted it, (normally for no reason and completely out of context,) probably added to that irritation with it as well.

As for American Dad, I never liked that anyway.

For starters I love both shows. But I think Family Guy is going on a bit too long, just like The Simpsons. Recent episodes of that have been a bit poor.

Quote: Ed Parnell @ August 22, 2007, 12:45 AM

The only real difference is Roger the Alien, who obviously is there to sort of garner interest from the 'aliens among us' community'.

Not really. He's just a cheap ripoff of Brian. "What's the most random new-Brian character we can think of? Oh! An alien! Yeah! Let's go with that, brilliant!" - I expect it went something like that.

Don't know what series it is but the ones they are showing on BBC Three at the moment are brilliant.

That's the new ones. It's either the end of season 4 or the beginning of season 5, I forgot where they're up to exactly.

I think these new BBC3 ones are being billed as 'series five'.

Whatever the series, I agree with ajp29 - I think they're great (just wish I could understand more of the American cultural references). I haven't noticed any drop in quality.

I know some of the poorest simpsons episodes are better then family guy. American dad is not as lame i kinda con myself into thinking it's better than it is by them doing satire well.

I thought season 4/5 kept up the quality of the first 3 seasons. It's the episodes that are being shown on BBC3 at the moment that isn’t quite up to the standard. I haven't seen the second season of American Dad, but the first season was very good. Not quite up to the standard of Family Guy, but very good. I saw those South Park episodes referenced above and they are brilliant. The Simpsons, though, will always be the best. Who saw the Simpsons movie? I loved it. I thought it was the best thing the Simpsons has done in years!

I saw the last 5 minutes of tonights episode, I like the Back to the Future parody.