Family Guy (seasons 1-7)

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Family Guy (seasons 1-7) "🎶He's! A! Fam! Ily! Guy!!!🎶" Genre: Comedy Satire Running Time: 22 minutes Country: United States Release Date: January 31, 1999 - present (Overall) January 31, 1999 - May 17, 2009 (Seasons 1-7) Network(s): Fox FXX Created by: Seth MacFarlane Distributed by: 20th Television (On behalf of Disney-ABC Domestic Television) Starring: Seth MacFarlane Alex Borstein Seth Green Lacey Chabert (Season 1) Mila Kunis (Seasons 2-present) Mike Henry Patrick Warburton Adam West Seasons: 7 Episodes: 126 Next show: The Cleveland Show (Chronologically) American Dad! (By release date)

Family Guy is an American adult-animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane. It has aired since January 31, 1999, spanning 21 seasons and 400 episodes.

Why These Seasons Are Our Freakin’ Sweet Family Guy

1. Being a show that was created in 1999 like SpongeBob, it's currently one of the longest-running cartoons that's still putting out new episodes. (Despite still not being recovered from its downfall)
2. Great humor.
3. Excellent hand-drawn animation by Rough Draft Studios, Film Romain, Digital eMation, Sunwoo and among other studios.
4. The 2D animation blends very well with the 3D animation.
5. Has a lot of great characters, including Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Stewie, Brian, Quagmire, Joe, Bonnie, Kevin, Susie, Cleveland, Cleveland Jr., Tom Tucker, Diane Simmson, Dr. Hartman, John Herbert, and Major Adam West.
   • It also has many fun and interesting antagonists like Carter Pewterschmidt, James Woods. Ernie the Giant Chicken and many minor and one-time villains like Patrick Pewterschmidt and Bertram.
     • Sometimes other characters like Peter, Stewie and Quagmire also have antagonistic roles but they are still fun as they are great threats to the other characters without getting rid of their charming qualities (which is unlike the later seasons of the show, except for Stewie).
6. Many great episodes (found in the "Episodes With Their Own Pages" header below).
7. Covers topics that are usually shunned by the public.
8. It received a great licensed tie-in video game in 2006.
9. Amazing voice acting, especially Seth MacFarlane himself.
10. It tries to see how much it can get away with its dark humor and delightfully controversial jokes.
11. Many episodes have creative storylines, especially in seasons 1-3, some example includes The Perfect Costaway, and the Road to....episodes.
12. Hilarious parodies such as The Passion of the Christ 2: Crucify This!.
13. Great, memorable and catchy songs such as:
    • "The Freakin' FCC"
    • "The Bird is the Word"
    • "A Bag of Weed"
    • "Shipoopi"
    • "I've Got a Little List"
    • "Drunken Irish Dad"
    • "You've Got a Lot to See"
    • "Road to Rhode Island (not to be confused with the actual episode)"
    • "You and I are So Awfully Different"
    • "You Can Find It on TV"
    • "Low Level Man"
    • "All I Really Want For Christmas (original)"
    • "You Have Aids"
    • "Vasectomy"
    • "I Have James Woods"
    • "Spirit of Massachusetts"
    • "I Need a Jew"
    • "Gotta Give Up The Toad"
    • "Good Morning"
14. It helped to prove that people can have different opinions about shows despite potentially having bad reviews from critics.
15. Considerably realistic character designs.
16. Memorable gags, especially the Quagmire gags and Peter's violent rivalry with Ernie the Giant Chicken.
    • Even Scrat (from Ice Age) appeared in "Sibling Rivalry" as a cutaway gag with Peter saying these funny quotes such as "NO, NO, BAD SQUIRREL, THOSE ARE MY NUTS, MY NUTS" and Scrat attacking Peter while saying "Oh no, my nuts, my nuts", which was very hilarious.
17. Many famous celebrities are fans of the show, such as Rihanna, Brittney Spears, and Dwayne Johnson. Some Have even guest starred in an episode.
18. Brilliant jokes, without having to rely on shock value (even though they were all good until seasons 8-present).
19. It got saved from cancellation twice first by Adult Swim in 2003.
20. Although Family Guy is a comedy full of satire, the show has some episodes that sends the viewer excellent life lessons, some examples include McStroke.
21. It may be relatable for people who have had a lot of problems with family and friends.
22. Some episodes have emotional moments, like Chick Cancer and Movin' Out (Brian's Song).
23. Lots of references to other popular media (especially The Simpsons) that might be fun and interesting for their fans.
24. Seasons 1-5 are considered to be the best seasons of the show by fans, as it was a great way to start the series, and it’s characters, stories, humor and heartwarming moments are memorable by many fans. This might sound silly, but many Fox fans consider these seasons to be better than The Simpsons', since the Griffins never abused each other, & the stories and humor were much more clever (unfortunately, things started to go slightly downhill in seasons 6-7, and it would only get worse since season 8), and while The Simpsons' is great, their stories had a few flaws like Homer strangling Bart (though it started to happen less often in the later seasons), which while funny, could be considered child abuse. It’s kinda ironic how Family Guy went from being slightly better than The Simpsons to way worse than The Simpsons.
25. The final episode of season 7, "Peter's Progress", was good and could have been a perfect way to wrap up the series if it had not continued past that.

Bad Qualities

1. It went horribly downhill since the season 8 episode “Peter-assment” because of character derailment/flanderization and awful morals and hasn’t recovered since then.
2. The series started to decline in quality in the sixth and seventh seasons. However, the decline wasn't too noticeable.
   • While Season 6 is good, is considered to be the start of the series decline as there were more bad episodes and the characters' flanderizations started to slowly kick in.
   • Season 7, while also good, is arguably considered to be the weakest of all the good seasons, as the episodes here are a mixed bag. It should also be noted that Season 7 was infamous for having a huge overabundance of cutaways such as in "The Juice is Loose" with the infamous Conway Twitty scene that lasted three minutes.
3. Even before season 8, there are still a handful of bad or mediocre episodes. Some examples include:
   • "Mind Over Murder" (The first bad episode of the series)
   • "If I'm Dyin' I'm Lyin'"
   • "Fore, Father" (A bad way to end Season 2)
   • "Lethal Weapons" (It's not terrible but very boring and forgettable; though the scene where the entire Griffin Family fight each other makes up for it and is considered one of the best scenes in the entire show)
   • "The Kiss Seen Round the World"
   • "Bill & Peter's Bogus Journey" (The worst episode of Season 5)
   • "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air" (Arguably the worst episode of Season 6 and the episode that started the issues that became the norm in Season 8 onward)
   • "Back to the Woods" (a mean-spirited way to started Digital eMation's animation career)
   • "Play It Again, Brian"
   • "The Former Life of Brian"
   • "Long John Peter" (A mediocre way to finish Season 6)
   • "Love, Blactually" (Not the best way to start Season 7)
   • "The Juice Is Loose!" (arguably the worst episode of the good seasons and notably features the long-padded Conway Twitty cutaway)
   • "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" (also counts as the worst episode of the good seasons for being terrible satire and being a torture episode for Brain)
4. At some points it can rip off elements from The Simpsons, though that show also occasionally takes elements back from this one.
5. The humor can get too dark sometimes, even for standards of an adult cartoon.
6. Not for the easily offended, especially for 9/11 victims.
7. Mild overuse of violence, sex, abuse, and farting due to how vulgar the show is.
8. Some of the voice acting can be pretty annoying sometimes. Like Alex Borstein as Lois Griffin occasionally, though not as much as in the later seasons.
9. Meg can be treated as a butt-monkey at times, though not a whole lot unlike what the seasons 8-14 brought up.
10. While the animation in these seasons are good, Rough Draft Studios' animation in Season 2 (while nowhere as bad as their work in Steven Universe and Star vs. the Forces of Evil), are below their usual standards, but that's excusable as the episodes are produced for season 2, way before the animation is refined.
11. In earlier seasons, mostly in Seasons 1-3, animation errors can be presented, most notably with Meg's glasses disappearing in numerous scenes, and Peter's pants color changing from green to blue.
    • The animation quality in the seventh season (and late in the sixth season) is also pretty good, though it is somewhat of a downgrade due to the outlines being more flat and the movement being more stiff. Though this not as bad of a downgrade as season 8 onwards, especially since the sixth production season had animation outsourced from Digital eMation.
12. Extreme amounts of toilet humor, especially in seasons 6 & 7.
13. The characters can be annoying at times, which is apparent during seasons 6 & 7, as the characters' flanderizations started to slowly kick in before being fully flanderized since season 8.
14. Most episodes have at least one cutaway gag that has nothing to do with the episode's plot, while they were fun in seasons 1-5, they have become boring in seasons 6 & 7, which could be annoying for those interested in the stories and characters.
15. The French dub is not very good.

Episodes With Their Own Pages

1. 1. "Death Has a Shadow" (A decent way to start season 1 and the series as a whole)
   2. "I Never Met the Dead Man"
   3. "A Hero Sits Next Door"
   4. "Road to Rhode Island" (Often considered the best episode of the entire series)
   5. "PTV"
   6. "Blue Harvest"
   7. "I Dream of Jesus"
   8. "Family Gay"
   9. "Petarded"
   10. "Stewie Loves Lois"
   11. "Death Lives"
   12. "Mother Tucker"
   13. "The Griffin Family History"
   14. "Stewie Kills Lois & Lois Kills Stewie"
   15. "420"
   16. "Barely Legal"
   17. "Airport 07"
   18. "Brian: Portrait of a Dog"
   19. "Family Guy Viewer Mail"
   20. "Da Boom"
   21. "Baby Not on Board"
   22. "Holy Crap"
   23. "Brian in Love"
   24. "Sibling Rivalry"
   25. "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)"
   26. "Meet The Quagmires" (Which ended season 5 with high praise)
   27. "Peter's Progress" (Which ended these seasons on a positive outlook and would have been a great way to end the series if it didn't continue past that)

Reception

The first five seasons received positive reviews, while seasons 6-7 received mixed-to-positive reviews. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it the 9th greatest television cartoon of all time, and in 2009, IGN ranked it #7 on their top 100 animated series list. It was ranked no. 3 on Watchmojo's top 10 Adult Cartoons.

Trivia

• George Lucas officially gave the producers clearance to do Star Wars gags because he's a fan of the show. Alternately, Seth MacFarlane is a huge fan of Star Wars.
• Seth MacFarlane based the voice of Peter Griffin on a security guard he knew while going to college.
• By May 2, 2003, there was an online petition with over 111,000 signatures on it to revive the show after its second cancellation.
• Angela, Peter's boss, is based on Joanna, Rachel's boss on Friends.
• Brian's voice is simply Seth MacFarlane speaking normally. In addition, many of Brian's personal beliefs, including his generally liberal political views and his atheism, are shared by MacFarlane himself.
• Lois was originally drawn as a blonde. After much debate, the creators decided to make her hair red.
• Brian Griffin was named "Stoner of the Year" by High Times magazine in 2009.
• The average Family Guy episode takes a full year to produce.
• 2009 marks Family Guy's 10th anniversary.
• 2019 marks Family Guy's 20th anniversary, leading up to a compilation DVD called "20 Greatest Hits".
• In "Sibling Rivalry", Peter's cutaway gag has Scrat from Ice Age in which it was to promote the release of Ice Age: The Meltdown.
• The Griffins' living room carpet and circle rug changed colors before and after the show was revived and renewed for a fourth season. The carpet changed from tan to turquoise, and the circle rug changed from orange and green to duller orange and blue as shown in a few episodes from the third season.
• The series is banned in Indonesia, Iran, Vietnam, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Pakistan.
• Similar to SpongeBob SquarePants, the show was originally intended to end after three seasons before being renewed for a fourth season however they both aired in May 2005.
• Dan Povenmire (the creator of the two Looney Tunes shorts from 2003-2004: "Museum Scream" and "My Generation G G Gap", Phineas and Ferb, Milo Murphy's Law and Hamster & Gretel) is the director of this show (atleast in these seasons).

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