Tue, May 3, 2005
Animation Domination
With neither Arrested Development nor Boston Legal to look forward to, Sunday was redeemed nonetheless by the premiere of Animation Domination, the name dreamed up by Fox's marketing geniuses for the two-hour block of long-running juggernaut The Simpsons, plucky upstart American Dad, and the return of the show these weasels couldn't manage to sell to audiences two years ago: Family Guy.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons continues to be unspectacular. Plotlines are farfetched and meandering, going miles out of the way for a corny joke or sight gag and trampling on most of the characters' established personalities in the process. However, a guest spot by Albert ("A.") Brooks in the night's second episode made the whole thing worthwhile. They should just hand the show over to that guy.
Family Guy
Back and back with a vengeance. It took a couple of minutes to be sure, but once it got up to speed, it was clear that Family Guy will be picking up exactly where it left off, with very funny stuff at a breakneck pace. I give it another 10 episodes before they pull the plug again.
Speaking of which, in the episode's "cold open" when Peter was listing off all the other shows (some great, some not) that Fox has debuted and then shitcanned over the years, I really wish they'd swapped in Arrested Development at the last minute. It wouldn't be that hard to do in the voiceover, and it would have added the perfect punch to the bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you approach they took with that scene.
And I'm 100% behind that bite-the-hand style. I hope they'll keep it up. The Simpsons has always given the Fox network a hard time, in a chummy, ribbing sort of way. I'd love to see Family Guy just unabashedly ripping into Fox (and/or Fox News) at every opportunity. At this point, I think the record plainly shows that Fox needs them more than they need Fox. (By the way, my understanding is that this Sunday's Family Guy airs on Cartoon Network next Thursday, and so on through out the season.)
Also, the Fox marketing weasels say that chicken that Peter fights with is coming back. Yesss!
American Dad
I have to admit that this show doesn't have quite the same punch that Family Guy has, which seems necessary to some extent: if it were exactly the same, that would be kind of weird. I enjoy the show for the most part, mostly because I'll laugh at anything that makes fun of people who think like our president, but it's pretty clearly the second-rate follower to Family Guy. And that's fine.
The alien with the Paul Lynde voice is still fucking brilliant.
© onebee · all rights reserved
Brandon — Tue, 5/3/05 9:56am
it's pretty clearly the second-rate follower to Family Guy
Third-rate in my book. It may not be exactly the same, but it's far too close in terms of the character - you can draw a line from every Family Guy character to their American Dad counterpart, there's just been a minor to moderate tweak (with the Stewie to alien connection being the most tenuous).
And I hate asking this, because making this kind of explanation always sucks the life blood out of comedy, but why do you and Joe find the alien with the Paul Lynde voice so funny? As a one-time throwaway gag, sure, I could see it, but as a regular character? It's an albatross.
Bee Boy — Tue, 5/3/05 10:56am
With anything else, you're absolutely right. The fish with the brain of an East German Olympic Ski Jumper? I liked it. I liked it better than just a randomly amorous talking fish. But it would be much better as a one-time throwaway gag.
But an alien with a Paul Lynde voice? Come on! That's just too hilarious. It's the kind of thing that would become an albatross, but it transcends it by being so brilliant.
Also, MacFarlane loves the "Rake Bit" and implements it with perfect comedy precision. He's a Rake Bit Ninja. I think you can look at Roger as a sort of meta-Rake Bit: at first it seems to be getting old that it's an alien with a Paul Lynde voice, but then it keeps being an alien with a Paul Lynde voice and suddenly you're not only laughing at the alien with the Paul Lynde voice, you're laughing at the commitment that the show has made to having an alien with a Paul Lynde voice forever after.
If you really want explanations that suck the life blood out of comedy (but are still fascinating nonetheless) allow me to recommend Stephen Colbert on Fresh Air.
Anonymous Coward — Tue, 5/3/05 12:01pm
Yeah, but has that kind of long-term commitment to a Rake Bit-style one-joke regular character ever worked before? I can't think of an example. There's plenty of peripheral character examples (from The Simpsons alone), but I can't think of a regular.
Listening to the Colbert interview right now...
Brandon — Tue, 5/3/05 12:03pm
Sigh... second day in a row forgetting to log in. Is that preview/edit feature still in the works?
Bee Boy — Tue, 5/3/05 12:20pm
Yeah, editing is. But I can't exactly allow it for people who aren't logged in. Then anyone could edit any post left by a coward.
I am planning to add cookies to the login so that it will remember you for a selected period of time (e.g., a week, a month, forever) when you visit the site from the same computer.
Brandon — Tue, 5/3/05 3:40pm
Mmm... cookies. That would be groin-grabbingly transcendant.
As for the coward entries, is there a way to tie the editing privileges for a specific post to the IP address it came from?
Bee Boy — Tue, 5/3/05 4:31pm
Well, yes, although it would be a violation of this site's (exhaustive) Privacy Policy to use the IP as identifying information. (Persistent cookies will be in violation also, but I'll make the necessary amendment to the policy – plus you only set those optionally at the time you login.)
Also, a lot of services (DSL, AOL, dialup – to name a few) sometimes use shared or dynamic IP addresses, which could mean:
Cowards might not be recognized after posting their comments, and wouldn't be able to edit them anyway.
Less likely: someone on the same shared IP (like in the same office) might access the page and be able to edit the coward's comments.
Infinitely less likely: someone receiving the same IP dynamically after the coward has disconnected would be able to edit the coward's comments.
In my view, it's not worth doing it if I can't be sure it'll work properly for everyone. If I were of the mind to tailor the new features toward the coward community, I'd go with "comment previewing" instead of "comment editing" but I think comment editing is cleaner and nicer, and it provides an incentive for registration, which is a good thing.
After all, cowards are great and I'm delighted for anyone to share his/her views who wants to – but the King of the Cowards is my sworn mortal enemy, so I'm reluctant to bend over backwards just for the cowards. Maybe they should elect better representation; that might bring me back to the negotiation table.
The comment editing and the login cookie will hopefully add convenience to the onebee experience, but they're intended as just that: convenience. I'm not interested in spending a lot of time on some sort of Comprehensive Comment Panacea because I think it's fine as it is. Giving people the ability to stay logged in and fix typos? Great. Worrying about the rare case in which someone forgets to login? Not such a big deal. Yes, it's happened twice in two days for you, but remember what Krumholtz says about regression to the mean: in the big picture, that's two out of many, many times.
"Kotc" — Tue, 5/3/05 5:37pm
"Maybe they should elect better representation; that might bring me back to the negotiation table.".. No elections in this monarchy, but there is a chance I will abdicate the throne one day... Don't Panic.
Joe Mulder — Wed, 5/4/05 5:26pm
Ah, Krumholtz.
[girly sigh]
I consider it an any-time throwaway gag, actually.
Personally, I like it because I missed the real Paul Lynde; I don't enjoy the "funny 'cause it's gay" mythos that seems to be the law of the land these days (about 7/8 of the stuff Shawn Hayes or the "Queer Eye" guys say wouldn't be at all funny unless it was delivered in that precious, ain't-I-just-TOO-catty way). The Paul Lynde alien – and, from what very little I know of him, Paul Lynde – goes so far beyond that for me that it actually cycled back around to being funny again.
"Paul, what's the difference between a cowhand and a cowpoke?"
[Paul Lynde voice at its Paul Lynde-est]: "One's a misdemeanor and the other's a felony!"
Bee Boy — Wed, 5/4/05 8:19pm
Hee! Did you catch his blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in the trailer for Serenity? I don't know if it's an homage to Allison Janney in The Hours, but it definitely makes me want to see the movie more. And to think, just a short 6 years ago, they were drawing penises on his face in magic marker.
Brandon — Tue, 5/10/05 2:05pm
Two weeks later, and I'm beginning to wonder if it should be called "Animation Disappointment." The Simpsons makes me sad more than it makes me laugh these days, and I'm just about ready to give up on American Dad. Only Family Guy is dominating.
Bee Boy — Tue, 5/10/05 2:21pm
And Family Guy sure is good. I was watching American Dad last night and thinking, "Wow. I really love a Paul Lynde alien, but just how much do I love a Paul Lynde alien?" So far, it's enough to keep watching this show. But it's very, very close.
(Haven't watched The Simpsons yet. I'm preparing for the worst.)
Brandon — Tue, 5/17/05 7:12pm
(Slaps his American Dad viewership on the counter, a la Kramer slapping his money on the table in the "master of your domain" Seinfeld episode)
I'm out!
Bee Boy — Wed, 5/18/05 10:39am
hehe, nicely done!
It's funny, I was just going to comment that I watched this week's episode and thought the series had finally begun to improve. There were a couple of solid laughs this week. I'll have to watch again to remind myself what they were.
"Coltyn Gaetz" — Mon, 6/6/05 4:02pm
family guy is the best then simpsons then amarican dad
"Marco" — Tue, 7/5/05 9:09am
Family Guy > South Park > American Dad > Futurama > The Simpsons That´s my opinion at least, and I really don´t see why some of you guys are so dissapionted with American Dad, it´s pretty similar to Family Guy, I´ll give you that; but I don´t see what´s wrong about it, when Family Guy first aired it was bashed for being acopy of The Simpsons, but as it evolved and we were able to watch more episodes I think that most of you would agree that, despite all the similarities, it´s a pretty different show American Dad makes me laugh, not the best show I´ve ever seen but it´s still really good, or at least I like that kind of humor and the general crazyness that the author of Family Guy depicts, I say that it would be really a good idea to give the show some time to really shine by supporting it and not giving up on it, you know that these days the networks tend to pull the plug on shows REALLY fast Do not let that happen to American Dad just because you didn´t liked two or three episodes THAT much, because I´m almost completely sure that EVERYONE got at least a few laughs; that unless they are too goddamn uptight and can´t laugh at themselves or their goverment ´cuz they take a comedy as something serious or offensive
"G-§W£mìñ£m" — Thu, 7/28/05 12:53pm
I think they should take out Malcomin the Middle and King of the Hill.They should put Family Guy,American Dad,The Simpsons,Futurama,and South Park.I mean there all cool.These are fun too watch.
"ananomys" — Sat, 8/20/05 12:10pm
simpsons has gotton so predicable it was great at first but now its to corny
Anonymous Coward — Mon, 6/11/07 9:32pm
they are all great shows and i enjoy watching the ps corey is gay