Why did Family Guy change so much after the revival?

After numerous threads on the subject, I'm willing to just say that Family Guy is what it is now. The show found the path that it wanted to take to make it successful, anyone expecting different at this point is kidding themselves.

I'm not 100% on board with the direction it took btw season 4 and 5, but the show makes me laugh, even with the occasional dud. I still make it a point to catch it week after week, as do millions.

And I really want to know what MacFarlane did to "inflate" his ego. Everyone says that, no one ever gives examples.
 
I'm going to agree that it's the change in writers. The first three seasons were basically a sitcom, while everything since the revival has been more the make-up of a sketch show. Neither of these are particularly bad, per se, and I think the reason a lot of people say the series has gone downhill is because the show has basically switched genres since the revival and everybody keeps trying to compare the earlier and later episodes like they're part of the same type of show, which they're not.

I'd love an example of "ego-Seth" too. Everybody always says he's cocky and stuck-up, but I've never seen a single example for this other than the lame "he's really successful now" thing.
 
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say a curious need to provide social, political, and religious commentary happened to it. I think it was around the time of the billionth Brian/Stewie adventure and the Nazi "McCain/Palin" joke that I realized I wasn't laughing anymore. It's not that I necessarily disagree with the sentiment behind some of the contemporary jabs - I just don't find them funny. For my part, watching the show after its revival is a lot like seeing a stand-up comedian try out jokes I've laughed at before and am just as capable of laughing at today, only...I can't. They all come out like the verbal equivalent of sight gags. I give them a courtesy chuckle in the hopes it'll ease me into something more genuine, but it never does.

Curiously, when the show does make me laugh, it has this odd tendency to drag out the laugh to where it tapers off and I go "Okay, can we move on to something else now?" For example, I loved Darth Stewie's inquiry about the Death Star's major design flaw, but then it veered off into some rambling joke about the Southern California real estate market. I live in SoCal and that was just about the dumbest take on it I've ever heard, completely irrelevant to the scene. It's like that a lot these days, I find.

Just to be clear, I have similar opinions of today's American Dad, South Park, The Simpsons, even Futurama - it isn't something unique to the recent Family Guy, but yes, I did feel a change in the winds when it was revived.
 
They definetly have become full of biased political humor now a days. If you go back and watch the first three seasons. It was pretty much impossible to tell what political party Seth aligned himself with. Everyone was equally made fun of. But since the revival, the Bush jokes, etc, have become very tiresome and predictiable. Brian's character has suffered the most, they've turned him into a soapbox character for Seth's political views. They have pretty much destroyed Lois's character too, turning her into a slut, rather than a responsible housewife she was originally. It's still very funny, but it seems they have thrown out character development for one note jokes instead.
 
Eh, I think that adding a different dimension to Lois other than the even-keeled housewife was a good thing, personally. Lois was very uninteresting in those very first episodes. Though I agree that for some gags, they took it too far.
 
If Seth wants to do sketch comedy then he should stick to his YouTube videos or go work for Robot Chicken. Family Guy was a sitcom for THREE years. So, to change it just cause they're too lazy to come up with solid story-telling is ridiculous.
 
I'm sure you haven't seen the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "HandBanna" have you it had a TV-14 rating and featured rape as the theme of the episode.
 
1) It was aired on cable television, at midnight give or take an hour.

2) Double Standard, but it's a male being raped.

3) Said Male is a main character, and ATHF is ****ed up in general.

4) The rape was done by a dog-hand thing, not another human.

The ATHF creators are also very cocky, but on AS where anything can air, there's not much impact. Fox is basic television, airing rape jokes 8 at night. So there's the proof.
 
Family Guy airs at 9pm.

And I really think you're being too sensitive about this. Additionally, Family Guy is rated TV14 and begins with a disclaimer, so you have fair warning.
 
I wasn't bothered by that joke, and I'm big on women's rights and equality. It's a joke, and it's not like they were saying rape is okay. I found it hilarious because Aquaman is lame.


Exactly. It's an adult cartoon, so you can expect material that some will find offensive. Nobody is making anyone watch this. And if parents are too lazy to keep their kids from watching it, use the damn v-chip.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthGonzo
They sure dont. They care about making people laugh.

Once again, it just seems to be that there are a lot of people that are just aggravated that Family Guy isn't the show they want it to be. At this point it's less an animated sitcom than it is an animated sketch comedy disguised as an animated sitcom.



Or maybe it's not due to laziness at all, but simply Seth and company's choice to make Family Guy more skitcom and less sitcom. Whether we think the direction FG is going in is "ridiculous" or not (some do, some don't), at the end of the day, it's Seth's show, not yours or mine, and he can run it any way he pleases. When you or I get a million dollar contract to make a TV show, we can make it any way we want, but in the meantime, we just have to accept that FG is what it is now, like it or lump it. Again, a show isn't "wrong" because it's not being run the way you personally want it to be.
 
8pm central for me, my bad.






I guess you all forgot what I was arguing about. While I have a problem with that skit, I was arguing proof if Seth is cocky or not. Whether you're fine with the episode or not, that wasn't the focus. The focus is the fact he or someone else created the Aquaman rape skit, and he allowed it to air on normal television. No one else would've done that. That's how he's cocky.
 
I actually used to somewhat like this show in the early seasons. After it came back, I just felt like it was random drivel, especially these past couple of seasons.
 
How do you explain the characters' personalities then? Before the cancellation, the characters were likeable and more moralistic. After the revival the characters all became mean-spirited, unlikeable jerks with very little to none morality.
 
I thought the episode with Bill Clinton and her sleeping together was the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of them destroying her character. She was always extremely faithful to Peter, but it seemed that for the sake of a gag they had her cheat on him.
 
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