Double post
For the first five minutes, I thought it was crap. It seemed like a pale reflection of Family Guy, a misshapen husk strapped onto the same bone structure. But then, I started to like it. The joke with the Iraqi man asking his wife for a beer cracked me up, and I see real potential with the political stuff. Mcfarlane pulls absolutely no punches, he could really hit a few key nerves with his bold style. Thing is, it will probably take a while to sort out the proper thematic balance for the political jabs, given the subjective decency standards over at Fox and Co.
The alien really bugged me at first, but I started to get his personality by the end and he made me chortle more than once in the last ten minutes. I completely dislike the goldfish, he seems like a mixture of the least interesting parts of Stewie and Brian. The wife and kids seem like non-entities, they were almost props in the first episode.
It was a solid if uneven first episode. I expect it to get much better. Most of you are much too hard on this episode, given it was a pilot. The first Seinfeld Chronicles featured a recurring character named Claire and Waitress, and there was no Elaine.
Someone calling this ‘bold’ sends a cold, cold chill up my spine.
The first Seinfeld didn’t debut after the Superbowl.
Deciding to to run a ‘preview’ of American Dad after the Super Bowl was Fox’s decision.
This pilot was god-awful, whether or not the series has potential remains to be seen.
Can we all just shut up now and eat some tamales?
The apt comparison between McFarlane and Smith is that they’re both terrible at political humor. It’s just not their strong suits. I still think that Peter’s joke about the two symbols of the Republican party is one of the worst ever produced by that show.
Also, I think American Dad is much weaker because while Family Guy is willing to play it as anything goes, American Dad was surprisingly conservative in its jokes. Whereas Family Guy might have as many as 15 non-sequiters before the break, I think American Dad maybe had three in the entire episode, and those tended to be the best bits (at least for me. I laughed at the Iraqi family with the Ikea furniture and the skier with the fish’s brain).
Basically, it felt like Family Guy toned down in order to fit some arbitrary idea of the American mainstream.
the first episode of seinfeld was funny, as was the first episode of family guy.
To the guy that says we are looking for something to rip Mcfarlane down, i think it’s more that expectations are raised after a pulp fiction, clerks, or family guy, and in my opinion rightfully so. I think the most accurate statement in this thread is that AD seems like family guy lite.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by thatgumyoulike To the guy that says we are looking for something to rip Mcfarlane down, i think it’s more that expectations are raised after a pulp fiction, clerks, or family guy, and in my opinion rightfully so. I think the most accurate statement in this thread is that AD seems like family guy lite. |
It seems to me like most of the people that are harshly criticizing McFarlane are not huge Family Guy fans.
As a side note, Kevin Smith didn’t start slipping after Clerks. It started after he made Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and refused to spend his directorial clout on anything other than things we had already seen before.
The novelty of hearing things like “big boy hair” and having a fish look up someone’s skirt in a cartoon has just worn off. McFarlane’s writing team spends most of its effort on being taboo, when those gags aren’t charmingly taboo and fresh anymore, they’re just tasteless. It’s the morning after and American Dad is flaunting my shame that I ever thought toilet humor could be funny.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Werbal_Kint It seems to me like most of the people that are harshly criticizing McFarlane are not huge Family Guy fans. As a side note, Kevin Smith didn’t start slipping after Clerks. It started after he made Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and refused to spend his directorial clout on anything other than things we had already seen before. |
I’ll defend Mcfarlane up and down, even if it pains me to do so over Clerks and the last 4 years of the Simpsons. AD has me questioning that faith.
JSBSB was basically the equivalent of Smith taking out a rib and fellating himself. While I enjoyed Chasing Amy and Mallrats, and kinda sorta liked Dogma, I never got into JSBSB. So for me anyway, twas all downhill from Clerks. Bad casting choices aside, Jersey Girl wasn’t bad, it just was a mediocore to ok flick that I wouldn’t have bothered to watch had Smith not been in the chair.
Boy, that Seth McFarlane is just full of idea.
I agree Family Guy makes me laugh in spite of myself; the comic timing is brilliant. But the fundamental laziness of the show, and now American Dad, bothers the crap out of me. FG’s premise is a pale imitation of the Simpsons, and now AD is a pale imiation of FG. As funny as the throwaway jokes can be, they’re supposed to be the icing on the cake, not the substance. The reason Simpsons and Futurama and King of the Hill and South Park settled in to being great shows is that there’s some actual meat to the characters. You could strip away the comedy altogether and still enjoy watching the characters for half an hour (though it did take South Park a while to get to the point where they weren’t totally reliant on shock value).
But the only two interesting FG characters are Stewie and Brian. Even Peter just exists as a recepticle for Homer Simpson castoff jokes. And now American Dad is crammed full of useless characters. Would it kill McFarlane to come up with something interesting for the mom and kids to do? Or just leave them out altogether? I guess I can see the potential of giving him a Liberal daughter, so why not just make him a single Dad with one kid?
If McFarlane ever comes up with an interesting premise, I’ll be there. Until then, forget it.
American Dad was pretty bad. I’m a big Family Guy fan, and I mostly get my laughs out of the sudden comic moments or the ones that have nothing to do with the current plot or characters. The Kool Aid moment is a perfect example of what made me like Family Guy so much. The pop culture stuff I either just shrug at because I never watched an episode of Three’s Company, Seinfeld, or Who’s the Boss in my life, or get a chuckle at because of obscurities that some people just wouldn’t get.
American Dad was everything I find about Family Guy dull amplified ten fold. The characters are often not the strong point in Seth’s work, yet he likes to frame American Dad’s characters, probably his most unoriginal ones ever, in the spotlight of the show. The good Family Guy stuff often had very little to do with the actual plot of the show, and American Dad seems to depend on it. It also tries to depend hard on political humor, something Family Guy used only so often. In fact their worst episode was one that depended mostly on political humor, and it showed. I’m not a fan of political humor, but if it’s good I’ll laugh my ass off. American Dad has bad political humor, period. The Bush call to God was good; until they stretched it so long I didn’t care what the payoff would be anymore.
However, Family Guy got popular because of its different structure and friendly pop culture attachments, not because of Simspons failing. I haven’t watched Simpsons in years and I attached myself more on Futurama then I did Family Guy, mostly because Futurama still has the classic storytelling of Simpsons and was just as funny. The Bender episode with God is more then enough to warrant that claim. The Simpsons and American Dad should just go off the air, plain and simple. And if American Dad is evidence of what is to come in Family Guy’s new season, then it better not be far behind.
I am a big fan of Family Guy, but I thought it was crap for the first few episodes. Especially the pilot. I am gonna give the American Dad a few more episodes for the characters to develop before I judge it.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by NoahtheStud I am a big fan of Family Guy, but I thought it was crap for the first few episodes. Especially the pilot. I am gonna give the American Dad a few more episodes for the characters to develop before I judge it. |
Fuck it, I’ll judge it now.
This show sucks. really sucks. Everything about this show is a pure copy Family Guy. The alien is the equivalent of Brian and the goldfish is the equivalent of Stewie, and you have the creepy younger brother. I laughed maybe once throughout the whole thing.
In no way should this be compared to the Family Guy pilot (the kool aid man made that fuckin pilot awesome).
I hope they cancel this show.
In a sort of off topic, what the fuck happened to Oliver Beane? that show sucked balls but I didn’t hear anything about it being cancelled. Also, does anybody miss Greg the Bunny? I kinda do
This show has gone from being wretched and not worth my time to actively trying to make me stop watching TV. Fuck this stupid worthless show.