Seth McFarlane Plans Another 'Family Guy' Movie. Seriously?
Filed under: Animation, RumorMonger, Fandom
Those manatees really know how to keep themselves busy. In one of the more irreverent news items of the day, Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane -- whose voice work is currently on display in Hellboy II: The Golden Army -- has told TV Week that he hopes to get a Family Guy movie off the ground in a year or so. The announcement was first picked up by Ain't It Cool News, where most commenters seem fairly lukewarm about the idea. Honestly, it's hard not to agree with them. Family Guy already has two feature length titles out on DVD, and neither one really raised the bar for the show or even played better than a decent episode. At least The Simpsons movie had a plot that made sense for ninety minutes. Family Guy, with its incessant randomness, generally works as a series of distractions. In other words, not the sort of thing that really needs to get expanded beyond the half hour structure. Then again, the show has its devout base, which eagerly anticipates each sloppily constructed gag like clockwork, so maybe the new film project is good business sense. Either way, the South Park two-parter that took Family Guy to task remains far more entertaining (and insightful) than Family Guy's entire six-season run.










Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
7-16-2008 @ 10:06PM
Slappy said...
I applaud you for reporting this news in the context of the ineptitude of Seth MacFarlane's garbage writing etc. Family Guy is probably the worst written show on television and the fact that a movie is coming...may be a sign of how low people's standards for "comedy" are.
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7-16-2008 @ 11:04PM
Peter Griffin said...
Oh really. Well you sir, suck.
I didn't realize that comedy required standards to be funny.
Case in point: Everybody loves Raymond, Golden Girls, Full House. Surely they had no standards for writing yet people found the shows funny.
Why should one judge what people laugh at?
Please leave us low brow humorists alone. Go home, put on a cup of tea and watch your re-runs of Friends.
7-16-2008 @ 10:07PM
Slappy said...
Allow me to clarify, Family Guy is the second worst written show on television. American Dad completely slipped my mind when I posted before.
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7-16-2008 @ 10:22PM
Xaeinovis said...
I don't exactly see how how Family Guy's style of comedy can be considered the "low standard" on the spectrum. I've genuinely laughed plenty of times at Family Guy, and I just don't see a real good reason to consider it poor as opposed to different.
That's just me, though.
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7-16-2008 @ 11:29PM
Jennifer said...
Well I'm not a big fan of American Dad but everyone of my friends and most of my family enjoy Family Guy. (that's a lot of ppl btw) After all, Seth McFarlane has made characters who are unlike anyone else on tv.They poke fun at the more serious things in life. It takes u away for a half an hr, like what's supposed to happen when u watch tv.
Besides what other show has stated that perhaps if parents dont like what their children are watching then they should take responsibility of their children, which is what a parent is supposed to do.
Afterall, all cartoons are frickin' dicks.
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7-17-2008 @ 12:39AM
Neal said...
WOW, you should never write about Family Guy again. If you don't like it, fine, but I don't need to read about your ridiculous "South Park is smart humor, and Family Guy is stupid humor" garbage. If you don't like Family Guy, fine, some people think they are too "highbrow" for that type of humor. I don't care, but the show is damn funny, and that's all I care about. In my opinion every South Park episode seems like it was written in 20 min and could use several more rewrites to tighten up the jokes. I've watched whole episodes of South Park and not laughed, but every Family Guy makes me pee in my pants at least once per episode, and often many more than just once. Also, Blue Harvest is a masterpiece. Hysterical. Everyone I know loves Family Guy. What I love most about it, is that it doesn't take itself seriously, like those stuck up idiots over at South Park. Family Guy makes fun of itself as much as anyone else. South Park is too busy congratulating itself for being so much better than everyone else (in their own minds). American Dad is also very funny. They are both politically incorrect, stupid at times, very smart and witty at other times, and funny as hell.
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7-17-2008 @ 1:02AM
Leonard said...
Count me in the pro-Family Guy crowd!
I'm sorry, but the argument that FG is not funny and the jokes are too random just doesn't fly with me. We all know that The Simpsons set the bar for animated comedy, but can we honestly say that the show's been irrelevant since the end of the 90's.
And as for South Park's satire of FG, I did find it absolutely hilarious, but there's a part in the episode where a guy simply says that sometimes he wants to watch a show that is about jokes and makes him laugh, and is not as preachy and all about social commentary (South Park in a nutshell).
Get over yourselves and realize that Family Guy has its own brand of comedy, a shotgun "shoot everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach and if you don't like it, don't watch it. I'm sure there's another deep lesson South Park is trying to teach you.
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7-17-2008 @ 1:33AM
Mark K. said...
I think South Park's critique was dead on myself. I have been amused by Family Guy for a few seconds now and then, but it has become so rote, so fast. So predictable.
Whatever.
It just goes to show, people will laugh at anything. I mean, the World According to Jim has lasted how many seasons now?
7-17-2008 @ 1:47AM
Dylan said...
Im in the middle here.
I definitely think Family Guy is a funny show. Or at least it was.....until this season. The non-sequiters are starting to get really old. Family Guy isn't a show that's suited for a full length feature, as Eric up here said. It just wouldn't work. they obviously ran out of GOOD ideas for the non-sequiters about halfway through season 5. I love random, gross, raunchy humor as much as anyone on here (I'm a long time fan of shows like this), but if a Family Guy movie were to ever work, they would have to find a way to bring it together in a sensible way. Not all movies about randomness were really good anyway (i.e: any movie by the duo behind Date Movie, Epic Movie, etc.)
Also, South Park is starting to suck as well. It may have pointed out Family Guy's long running randomness, but it's not the most structured show on earth itself.
:-P
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7-17-2008 @ 2:35AM
Morteza said...
Eric Kohn's taking "Family Guy" to task made my day. I love how all the show's defenders jump to the fore, telling any critics to shut up.
One of them even said the show makes him "pee in his pants," which is a perfect encapsulation of the show's juvenile "humor" and the inanity of its fans.
Family Guy : comedy :: Olive Garden : Italian food
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7-17-2008 @ 8:32AM
Andy Grey said...
I applaud you're reaction, Mr. Kohn. The funnies thing involving Family Guy is not the show, but the fact that there's a board in the writer's room of stupid gag jokes that they haven't been able to get into an episode, yet. It seems unbelivable that there's a single random gag joke the Family Guy manatees haven't been able to shoehorn into an episode to save themselves from the expense of fleshing out characters or a story.
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7-17-2008 @ 9:22AM
Robin said...
I loved the Stewie Griffin movie and thought there were 4 or 5 laugh out loud moments in addition to many more chuckles. Bring on more!
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7-17-2008 @ 9:40AM
Kevin said...
Everybody needs to relax. I love Family Guy but that doesn't mean I think its intelligent or insightful humor. It just makes me laugh for the 30 minutes its on. Its like Americas Funniest Home Videos. Sure, if you ask people on the street if they think a guy getting hit in the nuts with a baseball is stupid and they'll say "Of course", but you watch it on AFV and you're cracking up. I find it humorous that another commentor is concerned that they don't "flesh out their characters". Why should they? Does everything out there need to have deep characters that we can empathize with and stories with an underlying life lesson? If you answer yes to that than I would ask you why? South Park also fills its niche nicely. It does have the social commentary, so it can be considered more intelligent, yet at the same time its all poop and fart jokes, so don't hold it up like its the Harvard Business School of political satire. You're telling me that you really watch South Park for the commentary, and that if it wasn't funny you'd still watch? Lets just all admit that they are very different shows (despite being animated) and they each have their own style. No big deal, so SP fans don't look down your nose at FG fans, and FG fans relax and just enjoy the next shot of Peter walking around naked.
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7-17-2008 @ 9:52AM
Riley Freeman said...
its amazing some what i just read. why did u report it if u had nothing good to say about it. does nobody on cinematical staff like family guy?
its a great show and has been kickickng the simpsons ass in ratings for the last year year and a half about.
its a great show. south park is also funny but id take family guy any day over south park. they insult family guy when the have a character that is a actual piece of shit. and african where they make fun of their dialect and 2 characters that only come on the show to fart.
they are hardly in any place to criticize anyone
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7-17-2008 @ 9:56AM
indecks said...
Yeah, I'm not sure that people are aware that the Simpsons movie sucked ASS. I laughed maybe twice at it. The movie was on par with the current status of the weekly TV show. That is to say it's horrible.
The Family Guy movie wasn't all that great, admittedly but the Blue Harvest Star Wars Parody was brilliant.
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7-17-2008 @ 10:34AM
Nova said...
I thought the south park making fun of family guy was funny and I'm a huge fan of family guy. You don't have to be one or the other.
Honestly, if you don't find the enjoyment in the peter vs. the chicken scenes then you need to not write about family guy. You have to appreciate wtf moments to like family guy. Also family guy uses some jokes similar to andy kaufman. The Peter bumping his knee where it just goes on and on way too long. That's messing with the audience that you don't find in most shows.
Not all of them jokes work, but they throw so many at you in a half hour episode that enough work out to make the show great. And how can you not like an Adam West character. The genius that was needed to come up with that alone deserves another movie for family guy. People love the show because of the nostalgia factor as well. We grew up with adam west batman re-runs, indiana jones, star wars, bad 80's movies, and what not. That is why the wtf moments work because a lot of them in corporate those events as well.
American Dad is horrible, you shouldn't even bring that into this discussion. Family guy lovers even don't like that show.
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7-17-2008 @ 10:40AM
greatone said...
Riley, the "Christmas poo" was the first thing I thought about when everyone talks about how smart South Park is and how juvenile Family Guy is. I rather watch FG over SP and the Simpson any day. The Simpson has not been funny in a while and the movie was ok but nothing spectacular. The reason FG fans jump up to defend their show because SP and Simpson supporters are the first one to ridicule the FG show.
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7-17-2008 @ 10:57AM
Dave said...
Crappy article. We're not really interested in your opinion of FG, or of the SP skewering of it. Should have stopped after the first paragraph.
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7-17-2008 @ 11:00AM
Quito said...
I love Family Guy. I think its utterly hilarious. I think its a great mix of witty satire, toilet humor, shock value, pop-culture sadism, and overall zaniness. And I loved the evolution from a parody of a family sitcom, to whatever it is you can call it now. But to each his own. I used to love South Park, but I got tired of it. I don't hate it by any means, I just stopped watching. I did, however, love their critique of Family Guy and thought it was awesome.
Blogger's insert their opinions into their posts - they're given free reign to. It's expected.
So while I don't agree with Eric's sentiment, I am however excited at the prospect of another movie. I'd love to see a feature length Chicken fight!
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7-17-2008 @ 11:09AM
Petro1734 said...
Oh god ! Thanks, you super smart comedy connoisseurs for saving us from Family Guy. This whole entire time we though it was actual funny. Thank you for showing us the error of our ways. God, there is nothing worst then being tricked into thinking that something is funny when (according to you Nazi geeks) it clearly is not.
Whew....that was close, thanks douche bags !
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