Family Guy - "The Juice Is Loose" - Talkback [3/15]

I only watched at least 13 minutes of the episode, and boy was I dissapointed. Family Guy is seriosuly running out of ideas and the writers are just becoming lazy. Seriously. Conway Twitty for like 5 minutes? That's just sad. :shrug:
Some parts were OK like the beaver and Peter asking if OJ would be offended if he was asked to sign a basketball (with Quagmire about to ask the same thing), I only watched up to the part where OJ ripped Peter's shirt off revealing the recorder then I turned the TV off. I am getting sick of Family Guy.
Coincidently, I was watching a 1999 episode of FG on Adult Swim later that evening, it was the episode where Peter wiped out cable in Quahog. That episode made me laugh alot. The old episodes (all episodes before its first cancellation) beat the new episodes anyday. How did such a good show turn so bad?
If episodes like The Juice is Loose is all that the writers can create nowadays, I'll just stop watching Family Guy. :sad:
 
I agree. I mean there were a few funny bits like football head Stewie, Quagmire in the van, the pasta gag, and Stewie saying "I think you're just terrific" when everyone was freaking out but for the most part it wasn't that great. These days I thank God for American Dad. Whenever we get a mediocre episode like this it always comes along to clean up Family Guy's mess. Last night's episode with Stan's dad was fantastic.
 
Why would they do that? The Conway Twitty segueway bit is a staple of Family Guy, not The Simpsons.

Besides, regardless of the show, I think 3 times is enough don't you?
 
The whole Conway Twitty gag brings up an interesting point: Is it better to please your viewers or annoy them? In theory, this seems like a no-brainer answer, but hear me out.

There have been some in this thread, such as myself, who feel the cutaway was poorly-written, as not only was it done two times before, but this one was three times as longer and awkwardly cut into the plot. And we also feel that if this was done to deliberately annoy people, that's very unclassy of the writers to devote their time into annoying the fanbase that's done nothing wrong instead of crafting new, funny jokes or beefing up a weak plot.

On the other side, you have those who feel the gag was hilarious BECAUSE it was overly long and that it pissed off people like me. I don't want to put words into their mouths, but I believe they look at it as convention-bending, the same way "Space Ghost" devoted an entire episode to Sonny Sharrock's music over a "Please Stand By" screen, or over a minute of black screen ("Waiting") at the start of another episode. It's meant to shake people up. The argument has also been made that seeing Twitty songs promotes his work, but that's pretty much a side point to the bigger issue.

I dunno. I think it's interesting to consider both sides of the issue. Is FG just being beyond lazy, or is it self-consciously aware and trying to do something you wouldn't normally see in an animated sitcom, trying to screw with conventions?
 
I don't think the Family Guy writers are that stupid or that lazy, honestly. Certainly not as stupid or as lazy as everyone accuses them of being at least. Seth is a very smart and talented person and I'm positive that him and his writers/directors know exactly what they're doing. They're also well aware of FG-related internet discussion and have on a few occasions referenced it outright. They know what the audience wants to see just as much as they know what ticks all the haters off. So (at least IMHO) they enjoy pleasing the fans just as much as they enjoy pushing people's buttons.

Additionally, it appears to me that Family Guy has gone from a relatively standard animated sitcom to something that plays more like a sketch comedy. Plot and characterization aren't important anymore. These days the goal is to throw everything they can at the wall to see what sticks. And since the show is in no danger of being canceled again they're indulging as much as they possibly can, even if it means a 4 minute Conway Twitty sequence.

What's surprising to me is that while Family Guy is nowadays attacked from just about every angle, South Park (which devotes entire episodes to close-ups of Oprah's vagina and Indiana Jones getting painfully raped over and over) tends to constantly get a free pass. Or at least is never torn apart the way Family Guy is.

Anyway, since I actually would like people to see it, check out the cutaway a created in the "Homemade FG Cutaways" thread. I would really to see them do something exactly like this, because it would confirm to me that they know exactly what they're doing:

(Peter is pouring lighter fluid on an already lit barbeque)

Lois: Peter, don't you think that's enough lighter fluid?
Peter: Lois, when I'm done here these will be the best damn hot dogs you've ever tasted:
Stewie: Ugh, I remember the last time I added fuel to the fire.

(cut to Stewie in his bedroom. He's wearing worker's overalls and he's just finished painting the walls of his room)

Stewie: Now then. All finished.

(Stewie sits down and literally starts to watch the paint dry. Seriously. He just sits there for about 4 to 5 minutes. He coughs a couple of times, maybe yawns once or twice, but otherwise just sits there watching the paint dry. Eventually, after about 5 minutes, he gets up and begins to walk away.)

Stewie: All right. Now to see what the internet thinks about that.

(Stewie leaves. Smashcut to the next scene.)
 
Believe It Or Not, Joe's Walking On Air is the only episode to really address multiple issues and lampshade them that the internet fandom has with the show, from Dr. Hartman and Carter's vocals, to the Hitler unicycle thing. If they did more of that, it would actually not be seen as vitriol. But a lot of tv shows that are humorous do tend to make fun of their fanbase, even if they are loyal...kind of a, "don't take us too seriously, find some other thing to idolize" type of way.
 
You don't remember the talkback for those respective episodes? They were mostly negative. The thing is, South Park was able to recover from those and deliver higher quality episodes after those events. Family Guy on the other hand, rarely delivers anything that makes up for the crap they pull. Episodes like PTV rarely occur these days.
 
AFAIK just about everyone on the internet hated the Vaudeville Guys and would constantly post negative comments about them whenever they showed up. When Stewie finally killed them he addressed the audience directly and asked them if they were happy that they were finally gone.

And in "The Former Life of Brian", Stewie asked how a 7 year-old Brian could have a 13 year-old son. Brains tells Stewie that if he doesn't like it he can go on the internet and complain.

Personally, I think these were specifically meant to address people who go on the internet week after week to complain about the show.



Personally I think Stewie Kills Lois, Lois Kills Stewie, Play It Again Brain, Long John Peter, I Dream of Jesus (yes), and Road to Germany were all very good episodes and they all aired within the last year and a half.

Hey, I gotta defend the show. Because I sometimes feel like if I don't no one else around here would.:sad:
 
I'll defend the show if it deserves it. I thought season 4 (their return season) was fantastic. Season 5 was also good. And season 6 started out good but it hasn't been the same since Lois Kills Stewie. There's been a couple of good episodes here and there, but it's mostly just okay-ish.
 
That bugs me, too. Why couldn't they have used Meg and her friends, or possibly Chris for this instance?

The writers don't seem to realize that there are other characters besides Peter, Joe, Quagmire, Cleveland, Lois, Brian, Stewie, Mort and Herbert.
 
You should download the duet he did with Loretta Lynn. It's called "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" and it was in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It's great to play while having high speed shoot outs.
 
I've called FG out on stuff like this before, but I think there's some validity to both sides here. I don't know which side I fall on. (Although I will say, I taped this episode, so I gladly fast-forwarded that part after the first minute.) I definitely think they're aware that some people hate that kind of stuff.
 
Peter said that if Conway Twitty couldn't cheer Lois up, then even a minotaur with Sean Connery's head couldn't do it. The person at the door sounded like Sean Connery and when he left you could hear hooves. Though, I must say, this joke did seem similar to the joke South Park did where Peter makes a joke about Mohammed and answers the door but we never see Mohammed.



Diablo Cody is a household name? I have no idea who Diablo Cody is and I didn't get the joke at all.
 
Diablo Cody is the Academy-Award winning screenwriter of Juno. She also wrote a popular book titled, Candy Girl, which is about her year spent working as a stripper. Currently she's the executive producer/creator/writer of United States of Tara on Showtime. It's a drama executive produced by Steven Spielberg about a woman with multiple personality disorder. She's also the screenwriter for Megan Fox's upcoming movie, Jennifer's Body, which is a horror movie about a killer cheerleader.

So...yes...Diablo Cody is a household name.
 
Well, of course. Grand Theft Auto is awesome. I assume you're making a joke that implies that I'm actually having high speed shoot outs rather than merely playing a video game that involves high speed shoot outs, but I can't think of a funny response.
 
You might have a point, Boris. But I can't understand why a TV series would want to annoy their viewers. But maybe you're right. It seems like long cutaways and the overusage of Herbert.... well, there's some reason for that, but I can't understand why they would want to make their viewers unhappy.

Like a lot of people mentioned, I'm sort of thinking that they didn't have enough material in the writing to fill the whole half hour. That seems to be a problem they have a lot. If this keeps up, I'm just going to start taping the show so I can fast forward over long cutaways and stuff like that. Or did I already say that last week? It's hard to remember.
 
The guy who watched the Simpsons back in 1994 and won't admit the damn thing isn't funny anymore.

That was funny because quite a few people here act the same way with Family Guy. Pot meet kettle, MacFarlane. :p
 
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