Okay well it was back at the end of November that I signposted this, so perhaps it’s time to get it off the ground. As I mentioned, I’ll be looking at each episode in the light of what’s good and bad about it, and how it compares to its sister show. As
Family Guy was first on the air, it’s only fair I guess to begin with the first episode of season one of that show.
Urban loves my scoring system, so this is another that will probably drive him around the twist. Each episode will be broken up into certain sections, most notably “Good, Bad and Stupid”, but there are others. Each of these points will be given a score (“Bad” ones will get negative scores, the worse they are the higher the score) and at the end these will be totalled, compared to the other show and we’ll see who wins each time. Clear? Tough. Here we go.
FG0101: “Death has a shadow”
Basic plot: Peter Griffin loses his job and applies for welfare, but due to a cock-up his cheque for $150 is actually issued for $150,000. Peter spends his money lavishly until the error is discovered and he is prosecuted for welfare fraud.
Title thoughts
This is where I will examine if the title gives any clue as to what the episode is about, or has anything to do with it, which it frequently does not. I will then proceed to bitch and moan as I always do, and award a positive or negative score. At the end we will see what the overall consensus is on how the titles relate to the episodes.
“Death has a shadow”? Considering Death is introduced later in the show (and well done too I have to admit) I have no idea why this episode is titled as it is. The only possible connection is from the phrase “The only things we can be sure of are death and taxes”, but even that is a little loose as tax is not mentioned, just welfare fraud.
Score: -8
The Good, the Bad and the Stupid
The Good
The title sequence is one of the show’s strengths. It’s well written, energetic, features all the family (though no other characters) and has a great little tune backing it up. A real Broadway musical style, it kicks off each episode in fine form. What happens after the sequence ends is however often another matter.
Score: 10
(Note: as the title sequence does not change over the run of the series, this is the only time it will be awarded a score. Exception will be made when, as happens once or twice, they change the title sequence to add or take something away from it. I’ll mention this when it happens.)
The Hitler joke: class! A skinny Hitler is working out in a gym, and his efforts are laughed at and mocked by a big, muscular Jew, who has two sexy women hanging on to him. The lust for revenge in Hitler’s eyes … priceless!
Score: 10
The first words of Stewie, as he works on his mind-control device: “Damn you woman! You’ve impeded my work since the day I crawled out of your wretched womb!” Stewie would always be one of the shining stars of
Family Guy, and rarely will I have anything bad to say about him.
Score: 10
The joke about the fathers all having a brain implant that tells them when their kids are messing with the thermostat in the house is mildly funny.
Score: 3
The clip with the devil on Peter’s shoulder is brilliant! The devil advises him to lie to Lois --- “Women aren’t people like us!” --- and Peter then looks to his other shoulder, nobody there. "Hey", he asks, "where's the other guy?" Next we see the angel stuck in traffic. “Come on !” he growls. “I’m late for work!”
Score: 10
Stewie’s inventive attempts to kill Lois always make me smile.
Score: 8
The followup clip to the angel/devil one is even better. The angel finally arrives, and looks to his own shoulders for advice, seeing only the devil there. “Hey”, he asks, “where’s the other guy?” And we see him caught in traffic. Yes it’s the same joke recycled but somehow it works, and works even better
because of the repetition.
Score: 10
The moat/Black Knight sketch is decent too.
Score: 6
Peter and Brian in jail (why is Brian in jail?) with the couldn’t-hold-onto-the-soap gag is good.
Score: 5
Stewie’s “Life is like a box of chocolates/ But yours is more like a box of
active grenades!” is worthy of its own score.
Score: 10
The first appearance of the Kool-Aid guy is funny, and surprisingly, though they overuse it throughout the series, it kind of never gets old.
Score: 10
The Bad
After promising his wife not to drink at the party, Peter drinks.He doesn’t offer an excuse or try to find a way around it, he just does it, as he will do whatever he wants every episode from now on. When he thinks about it and says he feels bad, having promised Lois that he wouldn’t drink, and Quagmire says not to feel bad, he just says “I never thought of it like that!” and goes on drinking. Huh? What a flimsy excuse to allow him to break his promise with absolutely no effort at all. And hardly funny.
Score: -10
After having Lois admit that, really, nothing bad happened, he grins “Apology accepted!” Give me strength!
Score: -10
Struggling to try to tell Lois about losing his job, Peter instead tells her that she is getting fat. Talk about the pot calling, you know …
Score: -8
Cutaways
Ah, the mainstay of the series, and later to become its bane as Seth relied more and more on increasingly unlikely and stupid recollections from the Griffin family, best parodied by South Park with the “Mohammed sketch”!
There are seven in this episode already.
1.
The first one is okay: Peter ribs the priest at mass about the potency of the wine, and says if this is Christ’s blood then the guy must be loaded 24/7. The second one, not so much. Peter takes one lick of a butter rum ice cream and falls over. Then there’s a third one --- yeah, three in a row! --- where he apparently has had an Irish coffee and then goes to see “Philadelphia”, and thinks it’s funny. Not sure what they’re saying there. It’s not like he’s drunk, just doesn’t seem to understand that the movie, despite starring Tom Hanks, is not a comedy. Drinking an Irish coffee would not do that to you.
Also, Seth gives us the clear impression here that Peter can’t hold his drink, but after this episode he’s pretty much a hopeless drunk, and much much later drinks his own father under the table in a pub in Ireland, so what were they getting at? Peter’s a drunk, plain and simple. I don’t feel these work on the basis of the idea they’re trying to get across.
Score of +5 for the first one, -5 for the second and -5 for the third, making a
total of -5
2.
This is a montage of the jobs Peter applies for. The first is doing some commercial where he can’t get the line right. 3 for that. Then there’s the one where he’s a sneeze guard (complete with uniform and gun), 8 for that, and finally something about the Von Trapp singers. Don’t get it. So -7 for that.
Total: 4
3.
Peter joins the student facing the Chinese tank in Tianamen Square. It’s funny in a way yes but also tasteless in the extreme.
Score: 3
4.
Peter not having gas till he was thirty. Poor.
Score: 1
5.
Clinton drunk and making a pathetic zinger to a journalist. Terrible.
Score: -3
6.
Something about “Diff’rent Stokes” -- don’t get it.
Score: -7
7.
And just to put the lid on it, Joannie and Chachi are attacked by a bear that comes through the wall. Sigh.
Score: -6
Overall, did the story work or make sense? Did it succeed or fail, and why?
Main plot
Generally speaking, I guess it did. The basic idea was to teach people you can’t just live on welfare when you’re not entitled to it and that if the bank makes a mistake you can’t spend money that isn’t yours. The ending was wrapped up quite nicely, with not, as expected, an acquittal but a sentencing, then Stewie changing the judge’s mind with his mind control device. Seth even gave a reason for this: though Stewie loathes both his parents he realises he is dependent upon them.
So yeah, overall decent enough and I’d give it a score of 7.
Main: 7
Subplot
Wasn’t really strong enough to stand on its own, as others would be, but entertaining and it did segue nicely into the main plot, so overall quite successful.
Sub: 6
Total: 13
The Annoyance Factor
How much did Peter get under my skin, in this the first episode? The more he annoys me, the higher and more negative the score goes. So in an episode where he did not annoy me at all (rare) he would get a score of 1. If he actually managed to impress me (even rarer) by being other than his usual self, that score could climb. If he annoyed me so much I wanted to kill him then it would be -10. And everything in between. Expect to see more minuses than pluses though.
I’d say here he does things that annoy me but not so much that I wanted to hurl things at the TV, so let’s say a relatively mid-range score.
Score: -5
Character usage
Self-explanatory. Of the main and supporting cast, who was used and were they used well?
Main
Peter: 10
Lois: 10
Stewie: 10*
Meg: 8 (what will become an unusually high score, given her almost being ignored in most episodes)
Chris: 2
Brian: 4
Total: 44
Supporting
Mr. Peabody: 6
Judge: 4
Kool-Aid Guy: 3
Quagmire: 1
Diane and Tom: 1
Total: 15
Grand Total: 59 (of a possible 110)
* (Later, I’ll also be scoring Stewie and Brian together; how do they work together and are they used to their fullest potential? Do they save the episode, is it driven by them and how would it look without them?)
Crazy Factor
This will link back to the main storyline. How off-the-wall is or are the ideas proposed in the episode? Is it likely (within the context of the show) or is it a real flight of fancy? Does it work or does it fall flat on its face?
Here, I’d say the idea is basic enough and works well enough. I’d give it a high enough rating.
Score: 7
Guest Factor
When a guest star is used, I’ll be asking were they used well, did they contribute to the episode or were they just there for the sake of being there?
None here, so score is zero.
Episode Grand Total: 122
And so on to American Dad.
AD0101: “Pilot”
Basic plot: Stan Smith, CIA agent, arranges to rig the election of his son Steve to the Class Presidency, but Steve goes mad with power and Stan has to talk him down. Roger, the alien, is put on a diet, but finds ways around his restrictions.
Title thoughts
It’s not titled, just “Pilot”. No score.
The Good, the Bad and the Stupid
The Good
The title sequence is decent, but would improve in the second season. There’s nothing terribly funny about it, though it does attempt to introduce the family and, to be fair, does a good job of pointing out where they stand in a matter of seconds: Steve, Stan’s teenage son, salutes, so he’s obviously proud of his dad. Hayley, the older daughter, rolls her eyes as he hugs her and slaps a peace symbol on his back. She’s obviously opposed to his work. Francine, his wife, removes the symbol as she hugs him, and Klaus, the, uh, fish in the bowl, tosses Stan his keys as he heads out the door. Roger doesn’t do anything but hey, he’s a grey alien. There is a shot at comedy in the newspaper Stan picks up every morning, and here it says “Democrat Party missing, feared dead.” Yeah, a bit on the nose, Seth. But overall not bad. Much better in season two though.
Score: 6
Roger’s first action is to blow off Stan’s suggestion that he try to contact his mothership so he can get back to his home planet. It’s obvious he’s taking to life on Earth, and is now addicted to television, having to spend all his time indoors. He also berates Francine for not having picked up some delicacy he asked her to at the supermarket. We can see already he is a selfish little bastard who cares about no-one but himself, but in the same way we love Bender for being the self-absorbed creature he is, we will come to love Roger for the way he is.
Score: 10
Klaus’s unhealthy obsession with Francine is mildly amusing.
Score: 4
Stan turning, hyped up, as the toast pops out of the toaster and slamming multiple bullets into it is great. Hayley: “Dad, it’s only toast!” Stan: “This time it was only toast, Hayley.
This time…”
Score: 8
Roger having to go on a diet, with the rejoinder “We can’t all be like those anorexic aliens you see in the James Cameron movies!” is great.
Score: 8
Bush having a telephone conversation with God, where the Big Guy asks the president to “downplay our relationship in public” is also funny. Then he takes a call from Cheney and says “Yes Sir!”
Score: 6
Roger again. “Stan you killed your dog! And don’t ask me to bring him back with that ET finger thing, cos that’s a giant load of crap!”
Score: 8
Steve misinterpreting what Toshi says, usually the total opposite, as we can see from the Japanese translation onscreen. This happens frequently though, so in future I won't be counting it, unless it's very funny.
Score: 4
The chase scene, where Stan, supposed to be helping Steve win a girl’s heart by snatching her handbag and allowing Steve to catch and overpower him, loses himself somewhat in the moment.
Score: 8
“Spinning headlines back in vogue!”
Score: 5
Roger butting in on Steve’s reminiscences of his dad telling him women love power, to ask Stan to pick something up for him in the chemist.
Score: 5
Principal Lewis: “You can
read! The system
works!”
Score: 4
Stan: “Steve, I can promise you this, and this comes from years of experience: women are
never right!”
Score: 8
The wire-tap on Nick from the INS’s wife. “Hey, better with your brother than some stranger, right?”
Score: 5
The Bad
The idea of bringing a stray dog, a fleabitten mutt, to Steve as his new pet is both offensive and not at all funny. It doesn’t work on any level, except to show how divorced Stan is from reality if he thinks this is what his son wants.
Score: -10
Roger’s attempts to write Hayley’s papers just falls pretty flat, and leads nowhere except to another bad taste joke with the corpse, this time, of the dog. And a pretty poor ending where in exchange for treats he will set Steve up with women.
Score: -10
The Stupid
Steve outlawing kissing in public, just ridiculous.
Score: -10
Francine’s confession of her affair with a teacher, over the bullhorn, not anywhere near as funny as it was supposed to be.
Score: -7
Stan having Lisa’s family deported. On what grounds? They seem all-American.
Score: -10
Cutaways
They don’t, thankfully, rely on them in this series as much as in Family Guy, but they’re still here. You wouldn’t really expect less from MacFarlane, now would you?
1.
An apartment in Iraq furnished by IKEA via the CIA. The joke, when the Iraqi man looks at his wife, of whom only her eyes are showing, and snorts “Oh for Allah’s sake! Put some clothes on!” and she covers her eyes, is pretty good.
Score: 8
Overall, did the story work or make sense? Did it succeed or fail, and why?
Main plot
Generally I guess it did. Could to a degree have been the plot of any high-school drama or comedy, without some obvious touches applied here.
Main: 5
Subplot
Virtually non-existent, and very poor for a character who will later make sure the subplot usually far outperforms the main one.
Sub: 3
Total: 8
The Annoyance Factor
Not too bad.
Score: -4
Character Usage
Main
Stan: 10
Francine: 7
Steve: 10
Hayley: 8
Roger: 10
Klaus: 3
Total: 48
Supporting
Principal Lewis: 2
Snot: 2
Toshi: 2
Barry: 2
Jeff: 2
Total: 10
Grand total: 58 (Of a possible 110)
Crazy Factor
Not too zany.
Score: 4
Guest Factor
Carmen Electra voices Lisa, so as a character she’s well used. However I’m pretty sure they mention Hilary Duff, but I don’t see her name in the cast list. If she is there, she does nothing more than scream as she runs off. Leaving her aside, I’d give this a decent score for Electra’s performance and usage.
Score: 7
Episode Grand Total: 123
So the pilot episodes of each programme score almost exactly the same. Interesting. On we go then, to episode two of each.