(S06E08) In a mild parody of the movie Super Size Me, Peter suffers a stroke after eating too many fast-food hamburgers. Meanwhile, Stewie becomes the most popular student at James Woods High School, despite being a baby.Family Guy has such potential to be an original and funny series and so much of it is wasted. I saw hints of really good ideas in the episode but those were superseded by some hack writing and poorly executed material. Another reason to loathe the WGA Strike.
Spoilers after the jump.
To begin, this episode copied The Simpsons plot device of leading into the main story with an unrelated one. That wouldn't be so bad if the plot were good, but it wasn't.
It is interesting how none of the ancillary characters appeared in this episode. There was no Cleveland (although there was a reference to him), no Joe and no Quagmire. There was, however, a talking cow voiced by Ricardo Montalban.
The main plot of Peter suing McBurgerWorld was jumbled. It started with him growing a mustache then did a non sequitur, going to Peter having a stroke from eating thirty hamburgers (he saved the McBurgerWorld manager from a fire. The fire department let him do it because he had a mustache and apparently all firemen have mustaches. Make of that what you will). The plot then turned and Peter sued the McBurgerWorld company after his stroke was magically healed by a stem cell research lab he walks into. Then he had to save a cow from the McBurgerWorld slaughterhouse called Da-cow (very lame Holocaust joke). The whole "A" plot felt like three or four unrelated stories.
(I could make a South Park-inspired manatee joke here, but I'll leave that to you.)
The "B" plot, on the other hand, was decent. They even foreshadowed it with their One Tree Hill parody ("There's nothing that can't be fixed by staring at a lake"). I enjoy a good parody of teen-angst high school television shows. The lines were funny, such as going to Anal Point and the teen girl saying "O.M.G." Even the revenge bit at the end where Stewie has the girl arrested for kissing a baby was funny.
Funny stuff included the Monopoly Man in The Shawshank Redemption, the Wimpy joke, the Will Smith rap, and when Stewie was offered the breasts of the teenage girl with the response "No thanks. I'm stuffed." The lame stuff included the entire mustache storyline, the sudden use of the stem cell lab, the Italian joke, the Robin Williams joke, the horse leg joke and the buff hamster joke. The Monkees-themed chase scene felt weird and out of place.
Overall, other than a few high points, I'd have to say this episode was a downer. The writer's strike could be blamed. Perhaps with Seth McFarlane behind the episode, some stuff could have been made better. I just wish Family Guy more lived up to the quality it had before its cancellation.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-14-2008 @ 10:01AM
susan said...
I laughed out loud when Peter walked out of that stem cell research facility and found that he had been completely cured of his stroke in under five minutes and exclaimed, "Why aren't we funding this stuff?!"
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1-14-2008 @ 10:26AM
fred said...
Wow, you and I really didn't feel the same about this episode, it's even almost a complete opposite at times !
I don't say it was prefect, but I find this episode to be pretty dman hilarious myself !!
>The whole "A" plot felt like three or four unrelated stories.
That's true, but I have no problem with that. In fact, I'd much rather watch a main plot going over 4 stories, that it being one single story dragged on for too long and, in the end, completely unfunny as a result.
>The lame stuff included the entire mustache storyline,
I loved it, I thought the whole stereotypes and all were just great, and made me laugh, yes.
>the sudden use of the stem cell lab
had me laughing. Okay, maybe not a laughing out loud moment, but a nice & silly way to move on to other things without bothering much about details or "making sense", which sounds very Family Guy-like to me...
>the Italian joke
Again, I thought that was pretty hilarious!
>the Robin Williams joke
No laughing out loud, but I liked it. Of course, I seem to share the same feelings towards Williams' "act" as the writers of that one...
>the horse leg joke
Had me laughing hysterically
>and the buff hamster joke.
Ok, not really funny. Not really bad either I'd say...
>The Monkees-themed chase scene felt weird and out of place.
That one we agree though, that was kinda lame.
I found the mustache plot & the stroke plot to be great, the trial and rescue the cow ones were not. But with great jokes and a good B story for Stewie, overall I for one really enjoyed this episode!
http://tvoholic.com/episode-reviews/family-guy-mcstroke/
PS: What about Peter using Brian as mustache ? No ? Cause that had me laughing pretty good as well...
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1-14-2008 @ 10:52AM
sarah said...
i will agree with you in saying that story B was much better than the main storyline. watching the parody of one tree hill with the characters constantly with their hands in their pockets and haunched shoulders... hilarious. but you didnt laugh at the buff hamster? i died...
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1-14-2008 @ 11:11AM
Nova said...
You should not be reviewing family guy episodes. Obviously that style of humor is completely lost on you. Half of the damn family guy episodes start with one plot and go to another one. The show isn't supposed to be linear or makes sense. The story doesn't matter and you don't watch the show for character development. If you can't just sit back and enjoy ridiculous jokes, just turn off you tv and please do not write the reviews.
I bet you don't like the famous sequence where Peter trips and sits there holding his leg for way too long.
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1-14-2008 @ 11:34AM
MosquitoControl72 said...
"I bet you don't like the famous sequence where Peter trips and sits there holding his leg for way too long. "
Remember 7 years ago, when that was novel and funny?
Family Guy is like that inside joke that gets repeated until it's no longer funny. First two seasons were great at the time. Can't watch them anymore. For every bit of wit the show throws out there it lumps in a dozen bits of random. The randomness gets tedious and tiring.
The show didn't necessarily lose whatever it had, but whatever it had got significantly less interesting over time.
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1-14-2008 @ 11:52AM
Junyo said...
"Family Guy has such potential to be an original and funny series and so much of it is wasted."
You've now reviewed every episode of Family Guy from the last couple of years.
"The show didn't necessarily lose whatever it had, but whatever it had got significantly less interesting over time."
F'ing A. I mean there's a finite number of times a twenty year old pop culture reference is even mildly amusing (Really, Will Smith's not a hardcore rapper? Didn't know that... And he's got a box haircut? How about picking up a copy of Hitch, or hell, Bad Boys, Seth?). Or a 5 minute detour for a lame sight gag? All the lines that aren't Stewie or Brian are practically throwaways.
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1-14-2008 @ 12:08PM
Teebore said...
"Family Guy is like that inside joke that gets repeated until it's no longer funny."
Huh. Maybe the reason I still like (and laugh at)Family Guy is that my friends and I still laugh at inside jokes amongst ourselves from ten years ago. Lame, sure, but we have a good time.
I'm one of those people who, if I find something funny once, will always find it funny. I still laugh when Sideshow Bob gets out from under the car and gets hit w/rakes for several minutes. Not as hard as I laughed the first time, but still laughing. Same as when Peter trips and falls.
Anyways, I loved the mustache bit (particularly his all denim attire), the Robin Williams bit (yes, it's obvious, but man, the lengths to which I don't like that man's comedy are so great I will never tire of people making fun of it), the stem cell joke, and Stewie's subplot but felt the episode as a whole was disjointed and uneven (even for FG). Why exactly did they need to get the cow out of the factory? What was he going to tell people, that hamburgers are made from cow? I blame the strike.
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1-14-2008 @ 12:12PM
John Hewitt said...
You are entitles to your opinion, but I thought this was one of the year's funniest episodes.
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1-14-2008 @ 3:30PM
sarah said...
its the year's only episode. and that speaks volumes. hopefully, i can only get better from here.
1-14-2008 @ 1:14PM
Peanut said...
The Will Smith part was probably my least favorite thing, and it's one of the things you liked.
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1-14-2008 @ 1:17PM
kurt said...
Would the strike really have had an effect on the writing of this episode? I thought animations were plotted out and written well before they are scheduled. Doesn't it take a bunch of time to animate these things?
Anyway, what do I know. Started watching Family guy this past Fall and love the awkward moments and the disjointed story lines. I really don't care how it turns out - it is a bit show to me. If you don't like the last bit another one is coming up.
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1-14-2008 @ 1:41PM
Dave said...
You're selling short the Da-cow joke. The joke wasn't the pun. The joke was the Brian criticizing the talking cow in a concentration camp for making a tasteless joke that he had to explain. There are so many levels of absurdity there, which is one of the great things about the show. Not to mention that this was after the show itself made fun of stroke victims - a level of self referential irony. Maybe not the funniest absurd situation they've ever done, but you're really dumbing down a somewhat clever moment.
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1-14-2008 @ 2:04PM
LM said...
I thought this was one of the funnier episodes in a long time. The sight gag of Peter's droopy eye and mouth when we first see him post-stroke made me laugh longer and harder than any FG in a loooong time (I know I am going to hell).
I would dare say the majority of FG fans love the inside jokes and love watching the same episodes on Cartoon Network over and over. Same thing with classic comedies with bits like "Airplane" or "Caddyshack" or a Mel Brooks classsic like "Blazing Saddles" or "Young Frankenstein". I have seen those probably 50 or 100 times each and still love em and still laugh, maybe because I KNOW the funny stuff so well.
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1-14-2008 @ 2:42PM
MosquitoControl72 said...
There's a difference between watching the same beloved thing repeatedly (Airplane, etc) and having the same beloved thing SOLD to you repeatedly (Family Guy.)
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1-14-2008 @ 2:43PM
jgs said...
I love Family Guy. Yes some episodes are better than others but I always find a couple things that make me laugh. Maybe I just like Seth's sense of humor - even on subjects I disagree with.
With that being said, I thought last night's episode was pretty funny. There were many times I laughed out loud. Keep it coming.
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1-14-2008 @ 3:32PM
BigTed said...
I agree that the idea of a ridiculously age-inappropriate person disguising himself as a high-school student and becoming the coolest kid in class is funny. Almost as funny as when it was done years ago on, um, "Family Guy."
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1-14-2008 @ 4:08PM
Matt said...
"Family Guy is like that inside joke that gets repeated until it's no longer funny. First two seasons were great at the time. Can't watch them anymore. For every bit of wit the show throws out there it lumps in a dozen bits of random. The randomness gets tedious and tiring."
Exactly. I haven't actually laughed at Family Guy since season three, and didn't crack even a half smirk at last night's episode. The show has become pathetically unfunny, and they should kill it off for good before it completely craps on the good it used to be (see: Season 1 and 2).
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1-14-2008 @ 6:31PM
Bill said...
I've been watching from the begining. I was one of those fans that purchased the DVD when they first came out.
I've seen every FG episode ever, and I have to say that last nights episode was the worst piece of CRAP I have ever seen!!
Seth M. must have phoned in the writing or skipped it all together.
American Dad was much better. It seems to me that Seth is putting more effort into this show.
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1-14-2008 @ 8:03PM
Michael said...
The poll is a little misleading ... FG is definitely as good as it's ever been (Blue Harvest is a perfect example) but these non-WGA episodes are quite a let-down.
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1-14-2008 @ 8:18PM
Karen said...
I'm confused by all these comments about the WGA strike affecting the writing on Family Guy. I thought it had been fairly widely reported--including on this site--that (for reasons I don't fully understand, granted) animated shows' writers do not have to be members of the WGA.
That being said, I laughed a lot at last night's episode, and as someone who watched and loved "The Monkees" as a 9-year-old I found the Monkees parody hilarious.
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