(S05E13) Ya know, no matter what part political affiliation you claim, I think we can all agree that Bill Clinton lends himself well to comedy. There's just enough hillbilly in his character to make him easy to laugh at. Family Guy certainly isn't the first show to take a run at Clinton, and they've now featured the former president four or five times, but there's plenty of room at that party.That's getting ahead of the game though. Before we could get to the Peter and Bill hijinks, there was the loosely relevant opening at the Quahog Marine Center. While it was a long way to go to get to the main plot, there were a lot of funny bits in that opening. Herbert at the fondle tank, Stewie's stripper line, and Seamus saving Peter from the octopus were all good bits. I especially liked the Wacky Wall Walker finish to that.
That got us to the strange new friendship between Peter and Bill. I liked just about everything about that story. It was one of the better written episodes this season. From start to finish the jokes were pretty spot on. A lot of the Clinton jokes were plays on things we've all heard a lot of times before. Bill is a womanizing hillbilly, he likes fat chicks, the cigar, etc. But they worked well here.
There were so many good details that really made the episode work so well. Bill doesn't just have a pierced nipple, he got it from Madeline Albright. He does his DDR routine at Chuck E. Cheese to Aqua's "Barbie Girl." When he breaks out the saxophone he plays the theme song to Night Court. Even Bill is repulsed by Meg. They prank call Linda Tripp. It was just chock full of good stuff. For whatever reason, the line that really cracked me up was a stoned Bill to Peter, "Dude, come on. We could totally eat that pig."
Lois sleeping with Bill actually rang true. She's always been a little bit slutty. Her suggestion that Peter should sleep with another woman surprised me, and so did his choice of Barbara. Once she suggested it I was expecting Peter to rattle off a strange list of celebrities that included Oprah and Rosie O'Donnel, or some such. There really would be a lot of mileage to be had in a Peter/Rosie sex scene. I apologize if that brought thoughts of her Nip/Tuck turn to mind. I liked how it all played out though. Barbara immediately accepting and going on her rant about Carter was funny. And Peter's last minute change of heart actually led to a nice moment with Lois. As nice a moment as you find in Family Guy anyway.
I wasn't sold on the Stewie and Brian subplot at first. For one thing, I'm almost positive we've seen Brian flush the toilet, or be around the toilet while it flushed, something like that. So the crazy fear of things seemed a little off. We also had the family dealing with Brian peeing everywhere in "Brian In Love." Then again, this is Family Guy and not Babylon 5. The expectations for continuity are much different given the venue, so I went with it. Stewie asking the diaper wearing Brian if he had popped his butt cherry was pretty funny. And you have to give Roy Scheider credit for playing himself in such an odd cameo. It reminded me of a series of safety in the workplace videos I saw years ago that were hosted by William Shatner. In the end, it was worth it for the payoff with Mayor West. "You can't plant sausage seeds they said..."
There was a smaller collection of cutaways this week, and it was something of a mixed bag. My favorites of the bunch were the elephant man on match.com, Peter and Lois laughing at Stewie's artwork, Lorena Bobbit and The Thing, and Uma Thurman's eye wrangler. The racist sunflower and Brian giving dead animals as gifts kind of fell flat. The two Conway Twitty spots were just so odd and unexpected that I had to laugh at them. I thought the very Hee Haw lead in with the farmer telling the bad joke about his wife was a nice touch. There have been plenty of cutaway collections that were better than this one, but it didn't really matter. The rest of the episode was so good it more than made up for anything that was lacking there. Overall, this was a very good episode.
Six shows that I am watching pretty regularly this season
Five other TV shows where Sarah Palin should appear
Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-12-2007 @ 8:24AM
Bill said...
Couldn't disagree with you more. I thought this might've been the worst Family Guy episode yet. The cutaways were so random and unfunny (except for the one about Stewie's artwork... it started out weak, but when Peter said "let's spit on it" I cracked up), and so many of the Clinton jokes were so tired... just really off, I thought.
http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com/
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 8:31AM
Marc said...
I'm going to have to agree with the comment above. I didn't like the plot, the subplot, or the cutaways this week. I didn't like Lois cheating on Peter. No humor there. Peter having gay sex with Bill Clinton doesn't exactly work either.
This was the least entertaining Family Guy episode I remember, and that sucks, considering how funny South Park was this week. I was hoping for a back to back.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 8:43AM
Hugeliver said...
I have to agree. I was NOT impressed with this episode. I thought there were some highlights (Conway Twitty, Stoned Bill Clinton), but I REALLY miss the good old days when Stewie wanted to kill Lois and take over the world.
This whole buddy-buddy with Brian subplots thing has got to go. At least for EVERY episode.
Just my two cents.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 9:46AM
D said...
This was the single worst Family Guy episode ever aired. The show has gone so far downhill - it used to be 30 straight minutes of laughs with a plot that was creative & funny. Now, its 3 or 4 jokes per episode with some sort of scatterbrained, disjointed story line. I always liked FG more than South Park but its like the South Park guys are just trying harder, and actually putting some thought into their writing. Now I look forward to South Park more.
Also, is it just me, or have the references in the FG cutaways become so obscure that you don't even understand them anymore? I would figure that, at 24 years old, I am on the older end of the target demo. So I'm assuming that, if a reference is way over my head (80s references especially) then most of the 15-20 year olds watching the show don't get it either.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 10:06AM
Alicia said...
My husband who just gives in and doesn't complain (loudly) at Family Guy anymore, actually laughed and laughed hard at this episode... which is really saying something. I have to agree with Brett... Very very good stuff!
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 10:19AM
CaptKahunah said...
to the comment above: I keep thinking that after the stab that South Park took at Family Guy about not having a coherent plot, and just stringing together unrlated one liners, South Park needed to take a hard look at itself as well. This would account for the recent rise in SP's quality.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 10:58AM
Cat said...
I think this episode was one of the worst of the season. I wasn't engaged in the episode at all, and didn't really find anything funny at all, when usually I'm cracking up. This was just a flat out, bad episode.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 11:07AM
Daniella said...
My husband is the Family guy fan and he laughed his #@%&@!!! off. I do agree with the Stewie and Brian subplots need to stop and I ddin't like Lois cheeting at all!
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 12:09PM
Enrique said...
I disagree - I thought the episode was great! Too bad my stupid Comcast DVR decided not to tape the last 7 minutes...
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 12:11PM
Steve said...
"Dude, it would take, like, a minute. Then we could go do other stuff!"
Unfortunately my DVR cut off the last 8 mintues of the episode because the earlier show ran long (face it, man... we don't want to watch "The Winner"), but there was definitely a good amount of funny in it. I think, though, that the Simpsons already did the "lift with your back" gag in a funnier, subtler way.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 1:26PM
Borat said...
The Uma Thurman joke was mean. I loved it!
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 2:19PM
warlord said...
I totally disagree with the review here. I thaught it was really lame and puzzled togetheter, nevertheless I liked the toilet subplot
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 3:02PM
CaliberSRT4 said...
I didn't get a lot of the cut aways; one was the Uma Thurman one...but seeing anyone's eyes move like that would be funny to me though, and the other was the Conway Twitty ones, I am surprised those people that make up this this stuff even know who he is.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 3:08PM
BoomFoxx said...
I really like it when they have Brian do 'dog things', so I found it really funny when he ran away from the toilet on all four legs. That said, they already made the joke about Brian bringing back dead animals to the house (and they did it much funnier last time - "That was a gift, you bastard! That was a gift for the family!")
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 11:32PM
Karen said...
I was shocked at how bad this episode was. Wow: Bill Clinton jokes--that's really cutting-edge. The entire A-plot seemed to be about 7 years past its sell-by date.
I did like the Brian-Stewie subplot, but it wasn't enough to redeem the flatness of the Brian/Clinton plotline.
Reply
3-12-2007 @ 11:35PM
Karen said...
Oops! I meant, the Peter/Clinton plotline.
Reply
3-13-2007 @ 7:09AM
Darren said...
I'm afraid I've got to side with naysayers on this episode. It picked up a little at the end, but it's still a candidate for worst episode ever.
The Clinton jokes were mostly really weak. And I don't say that because I (grudgingly) voted for the guy; Clinton is a bottomless well of comedic possibilities. But FG's previous jabs at him (mostly in cutaway scenes) were much stronger. And the Stewie/Brian subplot was pontless and unfunny.
Whatever. They can't all be gems. Frankly, I'm more pissed at Seth McFarlane and Co. for stinking up the airwaves twice every Sunday with "The Winner," which is utterly unwatchable. WTF are they thinking?
But that's another forum.
Reply
3-22-2007 @ 4:46AM
josh smith said...
Just because FG has references which are too obscure for peabrained yokals to understand doesnt make that a flaw in the show, its a flaw in the viewers...I found the episode to be far funnier than any SP ive watched since early SouthPark Season 8...This show is still the funniest animated show on tv...
anyone who thought south park was funnier last week than family guy is a child, mentally if not physically...Using the n word over and over again is not even remotely creative, nor is it funny, and neither is making fun of midgets...SP has become the lamest show on TV...Its takes about 2 brain cells to see how lazy SP's Stone and Parker are...Sadly, it appears most of modern youth only has one brain cell to begin with...
Also, SP writers are so lazy that they only make 14 episodes per season, which is about as short as it gets considering their plots arent funny anymore than their jokes are...ManBearPig, for example, was and is one of the lamest things ever on TV that wasnt on TGIF...
Reply