'Family Guy' mocks Fox News, Coulter; pimps Hulu

"Family Guy" lobbed a couple softballs at Fox's corporate sibling Fox News on Sunday night (well, softballs by "Family Guy" standards ... which is to say, Nazi Germany jokes). Plus made one sight gag at Ann Coulter's expense that is both funny and oddly unsurprising. 

Lest anyone think "Family Guy" wasn't on the News Corp team, series creator Seth MacFarlane is starring in a new ad huckstering for Hulu. Watching MacFarlane stalk the camera while swapping in and out of his characters' voices is supposed to be funny, but the effect is kinda creepy. Hulu's new tagline -- "An Evil Plot to Destroy the World" -- ought to have fans among video-blocked Canadians and others on the anti-Hulu bandwagon.

Both clips are below:

 

Adding to the whole "Family Guy" corporate self-referentialism, here's a supposedly banned clip thats been making the rounds online this past week or so where "Family Guy" slams Sunday night "animation domination" partner "The Simpsons." The video was an extra on the show's most recent DVD set. A representative for 20th Television (which produces both "Simpsons" and "Family Guy") says the outtake wasn't censored but merely cut for time. "Family Guy" has made fun of the "Simpsons" before, after all, though I can't recall the show kicking the other series quite as hard as this before.

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Comments

[Wrecktum]

I'm sure the 245 non-15-year-old fans of Family Guy have already seen these.

[Freehill Media Web Design]

Can't get enough Family Guy

[zOnk.oNe]

Hehehe..nice. Family Guy still brings the laughs...

[larry]

Wrecktum, 15 year olds do not get Family Guy. The pop culture references are way over their heads.

[fawkes]

how many god damn scripts does it take to run a website?

[Josh Pyper]

Family Guy can be funny. You have to be in the right mood to watch it. Sometimes its just plain stupid. Ive never watched a show and thought it was the funniest thing on TV. A show like Everybody Loves Raymond is way funnier and doesn't provide the cheap laughs put out by MacFarlane. Plus now that the liberals are in power half the material for jokes is gone...

[Tree]

You didn't see South Park "Cartoon Wars" bashing Family Guy & Simpsons, apparently? It was much harsher than that clip.

[Umgwana Kickbooty]

"A show like Everybody Loves Raymond is way funnier " - Josh Pyper

You have GOT to be kidding right? Raymond? That mindles, boring, predictable pap aimed at seniors and Mickey-mouse club graduates? That show is almost, but not quite as funny as a traffic accident with a school bus and a cement truck. If I wanted to make someone hate me I would strap them to a chair like A Clockwork Orange and force them to watch episodes of that unbelivably dull and mindless drivel. The only intelligent moment in Raymond is when you realize you have fallen asleep and the damm TV is still on and somehow that crap is on your tv and you turn it off.

[Sancho]

That wasnt the controversial simpsons bashing clip that got pulled by fox, the one on the DVD is much harsher, though it should not have been pulled. Heres the clip, and MacFarlane talking about why it got pulled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYtlCR0V4cM

[Beth]

"The SIDE BOOB hour?!" My favorite episode!!!

[jack]

If you thought Family Guy bashing Fox News was bad, I remember the time when I [insert totally unrelated gag clip here]. Rinse and repeat. Mind you, not that there's anything wrong with that. I actually work out to Family Guy. Funny in spots, painful in others. The deal about Family Guy is this: Seth McFarlane is a raging Liberal, but it must KILL him that the people signing his checks are the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil people at Fox. So every now and then ol Seth has to throw a jab at his bosses to remind his Liberal friends that he's still one of them. Of course, if he really was as ideologically inclined as he keeps telling everyone, he would go to another network and stop taking Fox's money. But you know how it is -- the money's too good, so ol Seth will work for the Evil Empire because, gosh, he's gotta pay the home mortgage (or three) right?

[Dorian]

McFarlane is friends with Butt Boy K Olberman so I think every time McF. goes on that commie show he has to promise to make fun of some conservative and kiss the ButtBoy's ass. SO it's no surprise here.

[bpjam]

Loved the first pre-cancellation seasons. Not as sure about the latest stuff. Getting more and more about Seth being rich and being able to say 'F U' to whoever he dislikes.

The number of episodes I've just decided to fast forward through has gone up each year. I've taken it off my TIVO list and now only watch it if I'm not watching something else.

At least Seth has stopped public campaigning for people to smoke pot. But he's a leftist with money so the arrogance is going to be unavoidable.

[Walter Sobchak]

It's great to see Conservatives so pissed off at this show. I think Family Guy is funny as hell and so is South Park (which has a more libertarian/conservative angle, I think). Get a life GOP and laugh. People saying that the show is for 15 year-olds reminds me of the clip of Richard Nixon talking to one of his aides (on tape) and trying to explain "All in the Family." Seriously, you have NO idea how funny Family Guy is, or have even seen the show. FG is SO Funny! By the way, Youtube the Nixon tapes if you haven't heard of them.

[jack]

Hey, Walter, I'm a Conservative, and have probably seen every single episode of FG, and love the show. Likewise with South Park. So, how does that fit into your little conformist world?

[jack]

Hey, Walter, I'm a Conservative, and have probably seen every single episode of FG, and love the show. Likewise with South Park. So, how does that fit into your little conformist world?

[Heradite]

Conservatives don't attack South Park or the Simpsons when it goes after conservatives. Because their just making fun of it. Family Guy though simply bashes it, and the jokes aren't funny to begin with.

Frankly, the show has been going downhill since season 4. I, a conservative, loved the first 4 seasons. I would have campaigned for it if I wasn't 13 back then. From the 5th season on though, the jokes started to wane and I stopped laughing more and more. I only laughed like twice in the last episode, and the episode before only once. Frankly it's becoming a waste of time for me to watch it. And it's not just the political "jokes", but the ENTIRE show. ALL the JOKES.

"Wrecktum, 15 year olds do not get Family Guy. The pop culture references are way over their heads."

I know 10 year olds who get Family Guy better than 30 year olds.

(Oh and I love it when Stewie is evil, and I liked the banned clip until the end. I think they ruined Stewie by making him gay.)

[Edge]

I know Family Guy is truly for all when Obama is parodied, which I hope happens soon. I love the show, but I wish they would stop with the pointless filler. Do any of you know what I speak off? Last week it was that whole Conway Twitty song, or that boring idiot who runs the convenience store and just drones on. I thought in this last episode the whole script writing scene was this weeks pointless filler, but it actually turned out to be funny. Oh, and the whole family singing that God-awful song during their drive while Stewie was left behind, that was brutal.

Please Seth and company, no more pointless filler. We the fans brought you back from the dead, and we can kill you off again if you disrespect us. Don't f**k with us!

[stevenkirchstein]

seth you kick ass because of jokes you brought jokes back thank you so much you are funny no matter what anybody says

[shirley lotz]

The barnyard sex is on adult x-rated motel video. Steve Allen wrote "Vulgarians at the Gate." The world is coarsened by this filth--is this supposed to be amusing?

[Ryan]

I think if Conservatives get upset at the show (Family Guy), then I believe they should either do 1 of 2 things:

1. Make a conservative show/bent/whatever so you can draw your target audience. As long as comedy has been around, I have yet to see any really major conservative comedians come to the forefront. Could it be that there aren't many funny conservative comedians? Or could it be that you guys just like something to complain about? Those EVIL liberal hippies!

2. Turn the damn TV off. Don't support the show whatsoever. You people whine and complain about the content (And state you don't watch the show... when we all know you do) and how the show is going "Downhill". I keep hearing this about the Simpsons (I watched them up until Season 10 and lost interest) year after year and yet... they are still on.

I mean seriously...

And by the way... you people really can't just "kill off the show". Because they will just go on another station... just how Cartoon Network resurrected them before. And regarding taking Fox's EVIL money... hey... it's just business... just like Fox realized that there was a vacuum for a conservative news outlet... so they made Fox News... they took Family Guy on because they knew the Simpsons couldn't last forever.

[Larryisanidiot]

Larry, you are an idiot, I'm 15 and I do get the references.

Idiot

[Phillip Evans]

Family Guy is a show full of hate that wants to shock you instead of being funny. South Park is by far the better show. It's a well written show that is gets better with each season.

[Lex]

Family Guy has no depth. Its attacks on conservative viewpoints or conservatives are just as shallow as their flashback bits. At least South Park puts effort in its jokes and its ideas. There is usually some disarming front that, by the end of the episode, is turned around so that the audience can now see things from a different perspective. Watch the episode about Mormons.

As for why conservatives may not be as funny as liberals -- I tend to believe that there is some truth to the notion that conservatives are often "status quo" kind of people -- and it is the status quo that is most readily "mockable." What's more, the status quo is often seen as strong enough to take, to withstand, the joke. Picking on the foibles of minority groups or minority ideas is often seen as bullying -- and that makes some people squirm, not laugh.

Lastly, I can recall attending a college level Journalism 101 class more than a decade ago. The professor, explicitly and without reservation, stated that a journalist's role was to change the world for the better. In other words, the privilege of an audience meant the responsibility to do more than report "just the facts, ma'am."

I tell this story only to show how I opted to forgo my interest in journalism and thus pursue a different line of work. I wonder if conservative comedians likewise felt out of place among their peers and thus opted out. South Park's Parker and Stone probably already had their beliefs before they were successful; they were probably not swayed by peers; and now they probably have a level of success that allows them to retain their ideological independence. Thank goodness. They prove that conservatives can be funny and that liberal ideas (not just liberal people with the same human foibles as all humans) can be funny.