SethMacfarlane-related stories
Posted Nov 1st 2009 4:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Well, Apple didn't take my suggestion to replace Microsoft as the new sponsor of Seth MacFarlane's comedy special. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stepped up. Actually, it's Warner Bothers Pictures'
Sherlock Holmes that'll sponsor the MacFarlane variety special.
Microsoft backed out of Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show when they caught a run through of the program and objected to the humor. Goodness only knows what they thought they were getting with Seth, but it's all water under the bridge now.
Continue reading Sherlock Holmes will save Seth MacFarlane
Posted Oct 30th 2009 9:33AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
The Fox network cannot risk pissing off Seth MacFarlane. If they do, they run a good chance of suddenly finding most of their entire Sunday night line-up sucking eggs. At least, that's one possible reason for the renewal of
American Dad for a sixth season. That pickup gives MacFarlane the renewal trifecta for Sunday nights.
Actually, of MacFarlane's three series,
American Dad is the best one (although I'm finding
The Cleveland Show inching closer to first place). As opposed to
Family Guy, the storytelling is more linear than the other two and the jokes actually have some relevance to the plot or characters (I'm on Team
South Park regarding that "feud").
The Cleveland Show is also better at linear storytelling and jokes than its predecessor, but it's still not up to the standards of
American Dad. Sadly,
American Dad will likely live in the shadow of
Family Guy and
The Cleveland Show for years to come. At least MacFarlane has three chances with Fox to keep on working.
Posted Oct 26th 2009 9:09PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Animation, Music and Variety, Reality-Free
Well, it seemed like an unusual pairing when it was announced. Kind of like oil and water. Well, the oil slick has hit the proverbial fan.
Microsoft has withdrawn its sole sponsorship of Fox's Seth MacFarlane comedy special. That's the special that Fox was promoting like crazy yesterday all during the NFL games, the special called
Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show.
In the grand tradition of show business, though, the special will go on November 8, just without Microsoft commercials. Fox is looking for alternate sponsors. Here's my first call if I'm at Fox -- Apple. Don't you think those Mac/PC ads would send a message to viewers who might still think Microsoft is behind this?
It would also be a brilliant PR move by Steve Jobs and Apple. After all, they could say, "Hey, we're not afraid of the content in Seth MacFarlane's show. We have a sense of humor."
Continue reading Microsoft backs out of MacFarlane's Fox comedy special
Posted Oct 15th 2009 5:47PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Animation, Pickups and Renewals, Ratings, Reality-Free
Not that the future of this series
was ever in doubt, but Fox has extended its original season-and-a-half order of
The Cleveland Show to a full two seasons. Given the strong premiere ratings for the show, seasons beyond number two will likely be in the bag. If Fox didn't extend, they'd have to deal with an irate Seth MacFarlane who currently controls most of their Sunday night line-up.
Is
The Cleveland Show going to end up being more popular than its progenitor
Family Guy? Do these ratings simply represent a high initial interest in the new show that will wane over time? I have used the analogy of
The Jeffersons spinning off from
All In The Family, but did
The Jeffersons ever beat
All In The Family in the ratings?
Whatever the case, Seth MacFarlane doesn't have to worry about it for at least two seasons, and probably longer.
[Watch
clips and free episodes of The Cleveland Show at
SlashControl]
Posted Oct 14th 2009 1:08PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
The man who virtually owns Fox Sunday nights, Seth MacFarlane, will be
joining Carrie Underwood in what is seemingly Fox's attempt to
revive the variety show genre. Didn't anybody learn the lesson of
Rosie O'Donnell?
The show is called
Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show. It'll be broadcast on November 8th and be commercial-free thanks to Microsoft (who will be promoting Windows 7). The special will be a mix of animated and live performances. I've seen Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein (the voice of Lois Griffin) perform together in
Family Guy Live and they're certainly better together than anything Rosie could produce.
It's interesting how retro these planned variety shows are going. It used to be that shows like
The Colgate Comedy Hour would have live sketches about their sponsors sprinkled throughout the show. I wonder how MacFarlane and company will handle shilling Windows 7. Do they even like Windows 7? MacFarlane strikes me more as a Mac guy. "Mac" is even part of his last name.
Posted Oct 12th 2009 9:25AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
This is the third week of the new FOX Sunday night, so it's time to check in and see how the lineup is shaping up. I wanted to give
The Cleveland Show a few weeks to settle down and start to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. The pilot wasn't the strongest, but there was so much set-up involved, you couldn't tell anything about what future episodes would be like.
With Seth MacFarlane now providing a full hour-and-a-half of FOX's Sunday programming, we decided to take a look at all of his shows in a single post each week. At first, I wasn't sure if I was even going to like
The Cleveland Show enough to do this, but it's already grown on me. And that's much faster than
American Dad, which took more than a year of sampling here and there before I tuned in regularly.
Continue reading Sundays with Seth: Meet the Crinklesacks and fly with the Smiths
Posted Sep 27th 2009 9:04PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S01E01) The Cleveland Show begins with the
Family Guy crew in Quahog. After his divorce papers with Loretta are finalized and the prerequisite destruction of his house by Peter occurs, Cleveland decides to abandon his deli (you know, the one he never seems to be at anyway) and move to California. On an out-of-the-way detour, he stops in his old hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia and reconnects with an old flame.
Based on the pilot episode, the analogy that can be made is this:
Family Guy is to
All In The Family what
The Cleveland Show is to
The Jeffersons (with a little
What's Happening!! and
Good Times thrown in). Even the theme music is reminiscent of a 70's black sitcom, plus a few visual cues from
Soul Train. The theme is catchy and even better than the
Family Guy theme.
Continue reading The Cleveland Show: Pilot (series premiere)
Posted Sep 24th 2009 3:02PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Early Looks, Reality-Free
Having watched the first three episodes of
The Cleveland Show, I find it's a bit like a 70's black sitcom such as
Good Times or
What's Happening, but more demented. The standard
Family Guy humor and asides are still there, but generally the plots feel a little more linear and directed towards a goal. Of course, going forward that could be an exception and not the general rule. The show could end up being a complete
Family Guy copy, but with a black family.
The first episode (airing Sunday at 8:30 ET on FOX) begins in Quahog with the cast of
Family Guy. The entire circumstance behind Cleveland's departure from that show is explained before the opening theme song. And what a theme song! It's better than
Family Guy's. Very catchy. It's the sort that sticks in your mind like Fun Tac.
Continue reading The Cleveland Show -- An early look
Posted Sep 24th 2009 10:00AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Animation, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free, Press Kits Unwrapped
You've heard it before. The character of Cleveland Brown is the last person in the cast you'd expect to get a spin-off from
Family Guy (well, except maybe Herbert, the pedophile down the street). Well, he did in the form of
The Cleveland Show. Fox is trying to promote the hell out of this program and as a result, members of the press got a cute press kit to go along with a DVD containing the first three episodes of the show.
This particular press kit contained a body brush (for scrubbing those hard to reach places while in the bath or shower) as well as a plastic bag that contained a towel and some bubble bath . The only thing I can conclude from this particular batch of items is that watching
The Cleveland Show will somehow make one feel unclean. This is a nice continuation from the same feeling one would get from watching any given episode of
Family Guy.
Actually, the kit is a bit contradictory. The bag is obviously to keep a wet towel from dripping on anything, but who brings such a thing to the bath? That sort of item is usually reserved for the beach. I guess they were afraid the towel would get wet in transit or something.
Continue reading Press Kits Unwrapped: The Cleveland Show
Posted Aug 26th 2009 1:29PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Emmys, Reality-Free
Last week, our own Mr.
Bob Sassone posted
Family Guy's Emmy campaign video. It was a wee bit aggressive towards both
The Office and Brian (who just wanted to relax after a nice shower, poor fella), and now it looks like Stewie isn't quite done yet. Videos were made for the rest of the nominees, including
30 Rock, Entourage and
Weeds.
All the new videos are available
here. Although it's pretty repetitive -- nay, incredibly repetitive -- it's kind of amusing to hear the jabs against each show.
Continue reading Stewie still really wants an Emmy
Posted Aug 11th 2009 6:29PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, Animation, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Seth MacFarlane might have one of the most overrated shows on television right now (
in my personal opinion, of course), but he hasn't let that cloud his realism when it comes to its future.
He of all people realizes that the best shows are the ones that left people hungering for more long after they left the airwaves. You following me,
Scrubs?
MacFarlane told the
Edmonton Sun and
TV Guide Canada's resident TV junkie
Amber Dowling that he has seen the future of
Family Guy's finale and hopes it will come to an end while it is still on top.
Continue reading Is the end nigh for Family Guy?
Posted Aug 9th 2009 12:00PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Reality-Free
It looks like
The Goode Family and Surviving Suburbia won't be surviving. ABC confirmed that Friday night's airings of both episodes season finales are in fact their respective series finales. I've sampled both series at one point or another in their runs, and this fate was inevitable.
It was great seeing the "other" Bob Saget get some TV time, but
Surviving Suburbia just wasn't good television. Maybe if you're a television fan who's never seen a family sitcom, then the formulaic plotlines and dialogue won't bother you. In a way, I had the same problem with
The Goode Family.
However, with the latter, it seemed like they had the potential to grow into something better. I think in the beginning they were too bogged down by their schtick: a family of do-gooders, recycling and living green and all of that crap.
Continue reading It's bad news for The Goode Family and Surviving Suburbia
Posted Jul 27th 2009 8:03PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Reality-Free, Comic-Con
It looks like an episode produced for the upcoming season of FOX's
Family Guy may be too much for the network too handle. I can only imagine what a
Family Guy episode about abortion would consist of. And in my imagination, none of it would survive the FCC. So what does that mean? It means more incentive for fans to pick up the DVD set where it will inevitably land.
FOX, however, says the decision isn't final on what to do with the episode (UPDATE:
It is now!). I could see creator Seth MacFarlane actually being disappointed if FOX airs it. On a show that prides itself on pushing the envelope as far as he can, it's gotta feel good to take it too far from time to time.
He's already blasted religion, gay marriage, and plays with pedophelia almost constantly. Maybe abortion is the one topic you just can't lampoon. At the same time, I'd love to see what he comes up with. Really, all of this just raises awareness of the show and reminds us that it's supposed to be edgy. It's all for the ratings, baby!
Posted Jul 24th 2009 2:02PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, News, Animation, Adult Swim, Awards, Emmys, Reality-Free
There have been a lot of uneasy vibes floating around the offices of TV Squad HQ about the elevation of
Family Guy to Best Comedy status by this year's Emmy nomination committee. I'm not speaking for the entire group, but it does feel a little out of place earning a nomination that even
The Simpsons couldn't score in its 20 year history. It's like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Michael Jackson for writing "Heal the World" and completely snubbing Nelson Mandela.
But no one is more unhappy about the news than pop culture's official lifeguard, Bill O'Reilly.
He called out Seth MacFarlane's cavalcade of cartoon pop culture for
winning the nomination during his "Reality Check" segment.
Continue reading Bill O'Reilly doesn't feel so lucky there's a Family Guy
Posted Jun 24th 2009 10:01AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Reality-Free
I was one of those people who bought the
Family Guy DVDs and helped bring that show back to Fox. As such, when word came out that Seth MacFarlane was branching out with a new show, I was beyond excited about it. And yet, try as I might I just couldn't get into
American Dad. I didn't make it past the first season, and hadn't checked in with it since. Maybe it was too different than what I was used to.
When a friend of mine told me that
Dad was better than
Guy now, well I wasn't buying that at all. Lo and behold, suddenly it was summertime and I had all this freetime on my hands ... because I'm not going to watch
Surviving Suburbia and
CSI reruns and I'm certainly not going to go
outside! I decided to take advantage of the time to catch
American Dad reruns and see if the show got better. Fortunately for
American Dad,
Family Guy has been really hit or miss this past season with more episodes devoid of laughter than before.
Continue reading Is American Dad really better than Family Guy now?
Next Page >
Fact or Fiction: Big Bang, Brothers & Sisters and CSI
The TV Squad Podcast: Linda Purl talks about The Office, we talk spoilers, and more
Ask TV Squad: Ghost Whisperer and more!
