Since the 1990s, animated comedies have been a mainstay in pop culture, from South Park to Simpsons. One of the modern pioneers of this genre is Seth Macfarlane, a man who's now one of the highest payed people in television, and he keeps busy as his 2 biggest creations are Family Guy and American Dad (Cleveland Show isn't that great). With 2 major Macfarlane comedies usually running side by side on Fox, FX or BBC3, the question I'm asking now is, which is the overall better show? Well as you guessed, I'm gonna try and deduce it, so let's find out 'what's the deuce'.
Let's look at the comic content of the show. Since both are Macfarlane creations, they have similar writing staffs, all be minor exceptions. When it first started, Family Guy had a wry lunacy about it, the cut-away gags were fresh, yet the show also had pretty sharp one-liners. American Dad tends to avoid the cutaway jokes, as not to seem like a complete rip-off, but it still uses wry dialogue, whereas in the later seasons, Family Guy has mainly relied on shock comedy, such as vomit, peadophilia, rape, poop and racism jokes, some work well others don't. One main factor that Family Guy relies on is the grandness of it's show, American Dad is often seen as the formers little brother and there's a reason. Family Guy showcases lavish musical numbers that tend to split sides, as well as epic stories such as Stewie and Brians 'Road to...' episodes. The cut-away gags allow Family Guy to tackle a vast array of subjects and parody them unmercifully, but American Dad can combat this by using main plots to tackle large subjects such as Abortion, terrorism and homeland security. The set up of American Dad (main character being a CIA agent) allows for pretty surealy fun storylines, often involving terrorists, aliens and super gadgets. I'll cover how the humour of each show has held up over time later, but for now we can see that at their peek, both shows can be immensly enjoyable.
Any great show needs great characters as fodder for the mad situations that occur to them. Both shows have a similar character set up (due to the family situation in both), so let's compare each title member of each family. In the husband/father characters, Peter is a fat, drunk idiot, basically a more outlandish Homer Simpson, and although he can provide a laugh here and there, his character is getting a bit out-dated. Stan tends to be the more well rounded character, whilst somewhat stupid, he also has a xenophobic ignorence, along with often pathetically moral beliefs, mixed with a past teenage insecurity. Francine just tends to be a tamer version of Lois, the MILF with a sordid past who has to be responsible for her family, although Lois let's her past out frequently and provides some good humour. Whereas Chris' dull nature can be quite funny if written right, Steve's teen runt with an unfufiled libedo have a humour yet pathetic sympathy to it, making him a character some can relate to. In the daughter scene, while Hayley is often just a moral voice against Stans bigotry, Meg is the ugly, unpopular girl who everyone pics on (including her family) and her repression can be quite amusing. Both shows have the anthropomorphic character of Stewie/Brian and Roger/Klaus, Stewie and Roger are quite similar, both are antagonistic, with Stewie bordering on maniacle and Roger bordering on Bitchy, both treat most of those around them with contempt and both are often the funniest characters on the shows, due to a lack of conscience or restraints that allow them to commit questionably funny acts. Klaus is a very minimal character, nothing ever insightful comes from him and he can be at times grating to watch, whereas Brian is a multilayered character, often the most human ironically. He's an intelectual liberal who lusts after his friends wife, smokes pot, longs for love, has no writing ability despite believing otherwise and is the moral voice for many of the characters.
With Family Guy now nearing a 10th series, it's aparent that it's lost some pizaz. It's been suffering Simpsons esq stagnation, with past series being remembered as better and some jokes that often fall flat. American Dad is now nearing a 6th series, and while a few episodes have mild stagnation, it's still as sharp, if not more than it once was. When compairing the newest Family Guy and American Dad boxsets together, I often find AD volume 5 being better than FG volume 9, and AD volume 4 better than FG volume 8. However, while volume 6 of American Dad was very good, in fact better than the last, Family Guy stepped it up with volume 10 being the best in years, despite a few stragling episodes. With Family Guy now practically being an institution, it's a valid question whether it's quality can last and when it will get to the point where it'll become a husk of it's former self, just as the Simpsons. American Dad might be hitting that stagnation soon, but only time will tell whether it'll be better than Family Guy's stagnation.
In conclusion, the majority of people would favour Family Guy, due to it being the forerunner and the longer running show, but as I said earlier, new American Dad tend to be better than the new Family Guys in terms of story/laughs. But when we look at both shows in their prime, we see Family Guy trumping with moments like PTV, Surfin Bird, the Y2K episode, the Pilot and many other greats, in conclusion, Family Guy may be dwindling now, but at it's prime, it was Freaking Sweet.
No comments:
Post a Comment