Tag Archives: Family Guy

“Survivor: Blood vs. Water’ Premiere – The Bitch is Back

After a long, Probst-free summer, Survivor is finally back, and the man in denim is ready to preside over the case of Blood v. Water. With only a few hours until court is back in session, let’s get right to it.

The burning question for this season, as we noted in our pseudo-primer/preview, is “has Gervase, after thirteen years, learned to swim?”

Well, from the looks of his very tentative entry into the water, it seems unlikely.

Gervase Survivor

But it was more of an encouraging start than that of Tyson’s girlfriend Rachel, who apparently agreed to sleep in the jungle for 39 days on the one condition that she can never get wet.

Tyson & Rachel

When the Survivors and their loved ones arrive on dry land (including Kat and her boyfriend/big brother Hayden), they learn that they’ll be spending their first night alone, and while the game is afoot, the formation of the tribes will wait. Colton, of course, is back, because no ruptured appendix can deter a monster that terrible. He’s returned with his boyfriend Caleb, which serves to make him more sympathetic terrible. And even though he has his southern boytoy to take care of him, he’s still livid about having to spend a night in the elements.

More: Take Your Daughters to School Day…

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Filed under Analysis, Century 21 Reality, The Worst, Tribal Council

‘Survivor: Caramoan’ – Aw, Nuts!

After the stunning, shocking, game-changing Tribal Council that saw Team Bro play three Immunities and send Former Federal Agent(?) Fillip packing on the previous Survivor: Caramoan, Eddie thought that before everyone started strategizing and scrambling he’d just deliver one of his classic zingers to lighten the mood.

That Eddie. 2 much. And 2 Legit 2 Quit.

But the good vibes don’t last too long. The next morning Brenda wakes up just super cranky. Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed! Or maybe she saw something that freaked her out. Wonder what that could have been…

More: What terrified Brenda? What gave Dawn diarrhea? And what’s all over their faces???

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Filed under Analysis, Century 21 Reality, Huh?, It's gross., MS Paint, Tribal Council

‘Survivor: Caramoan’ – The Say Gay Kid

Survivor Caramoan Michael & CorinneBefore we dig deep into this week’s episode of Survivor: Caramoan – Fans vs. Favorites 2 Legit 2 Quit, we owe you, the loyal reader, an apology. You see, we had gotten so wrapped up in the sad, soul-sucking sagas of Shamar and Brandon that we had forgotten about Former Federal Agent Fillip(?). Specifically, we had forgotten how capable he was of equal soul-sucking, his stewardship of an imaginary corporation (painfully imaginary to everyone else but him) serving to dominate camp life and suffocating other players. We had hoped – erroneously – that the exit of Shamar and Brandon, two divisive but attention grabbing personalities, would open the game up. Instead, it just passed the speaking baton to the equal of three evils. Not that FFAF is complaining, being the singular intolerable, maddening, petulant male personality left only enhances his chances of making it to the end.

However, Fillip has some flaws in his game. Namely, he thinks he’s running some kind of top secret covert operation and explains this to every player he encounters, creating something more akin to a completely obvious overt debacle. But in addition to his delusions of grandeur, FFAF is also incredibly sensitive. He is easily rattled when someone challenges his leadership and integrity, and he demonstrates this trait when the Favorites returned to camp after they evicted Brandon from the house. Wearing the classic tucked in poncho characteristic of all great CEOs, Fillip was so hurt that Brandon said such mean, unprovoked things about him, and no one stood up for poor FFAF. Corinne jumped in too, saying how uncool it was for Brandon to only pick on her and Fill, that she sympathized with Fill’s frustration and anger with the rest of BeKool for not stepping up to the plate. And this made up The Specialist’s mind once and for all: he needs to get rid of Corinne, because her commiseration clearly makes her the biggest threat, for some reason entirely unclear to us. But that’s why he’s The Specialist and we’re just a dude writing a blog and not running a made-up paramilitary organization.

Continue: Corinne reveals her one true weakness…

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Filed under Analysis, Century 21 Reality, The Worst, Tribal Council

Girls, Girls, Girls*

Well, if you still needed something to wash out the taste of misogyny and disrespect towards women after the Oscars, then a trio of announcements concerning female-centric projects might just finally cleanse your palate.  Basically, it’s Ladies Night and all the girls drink for free. To wit:

1. Comedy Central has, very wisely, picked up a ten-episode order of Broad Citya comedy based on the web series of the same name created by and starring the brilliant Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson (full disclosure: they are close personal friends and two beautiful, strong, hilarious, independent women). Loosely based on their own lives, it’s the anti-Sex and the City that Girls** isn’t. Here is the Season 2 finale, a love letter to NYC that features Amy Poehler, who is executive producing the series (and is another beautiful, strong, hilarious, independent woman):

More: K. Bell and the future Belle of the Ball…

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Filed under Brilliance, Flashback!, Freak Out Control, Good News!, Mars Investigations, The Big Screen, Virulent, Yasmine Bleeth

In Defense of Seth MacFarlane: Comedy is in the Eye of the Beholder & Peeling Back The Onion

Seth MacFarlane OscarsFirst, some context: we are not especially devoted Seth MacFarlane fans. For a time we watched Family Guy semi-regularly and certainly were a part of that groundswell that helped resurrect the show from its premature grave. But do we consider ourselves MacFarlane evangelists or advocates? Not at all. We still haven’t seen Ted, and are not exceptionally eager to do so. We rarely watch American Dad and we can’t say for sure that we’ve ever caught an episode of The Cleveland Show. We were, however, impressed with his performance hosting the SNL premiere, and it demonstrated that not only could he do funny voices and write an off-color (and oft-humorous) joke, but he could also perform, and perform live, which is not always second nature for a writer-producer-voice actor. Did that mean we were thrilled to learn he was tapped to host this year’s Oscars? No, not really. We thought it was somewhat a knee-jerk, ill-advised decision (probably due, paradoxically, to his mess-up when presenting at the 2012 Emmys). But we knew, at least, that he could hold his own on stage, singing, dancing, cracking wise, and thinking on his feet. Was he going to offend some people? Probably. But that would come with the territory. Wouldn’t that be by design? If you wanted someone with only a love of musical theater and a flair for singing and dancing, then wouldn’t you just turn to Billy Crystal for a record 74th time? So, with Seth MacFarlane, that’s the package, that’s the deal (a faustian bargain, depending on your point of view): some dick and fart jokes and some mildly anti-Semitic and racist humor mixed with some sprinkles of old Broadway.

So were we surprised that MacFarlarne’s hosting turn this past Sunday night was met with a mix of disappointment and outright scorn? No, not at all. That was to be expected. But, after seeing the show, we were taken aback at the amount of criticism leveled at MacFarlane because, frankly, for someone who trades in abortion jokes and greased up deaf guys, we found his material relatively mild. It was almost as if we were watching a different show, different from the one that so much of the (tweeting) public found so repugnant, so misogynistic  and racist and base. And, to our surprise, we found ourselves in MacFarlane’s corner. Not because we found his turn especially remarkable. But because it wasn’t that bad. And, more importantly, it wasn’t that vile.

Read on: 9 things that we didn’t find so sexist, and a rotten Onion…

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Filed under Analysis, Fashion Show at Lunch, In defense of:, Lists, Other people's stuff, The Big Screen

The Boy Meets World is Back in Town

Sometimes, every once in a while, if you’re really lucky, something comes around that totally shocks you, that stops you dead in your tracks, that is so surprising and wonderful and unexpected that it can’t possibly be true. For us, that was the news that The Disney Channel is developing a Boy Meets World spin-off. It’s so exciting and bizarre and unlikely that it’s still hard to believe.

Earlier in the week we were treated to a similar experience, the breaking of news that would change the state of the world of which we know. That development, of course, was the announcement that not only had Disney purchased Lucasfilm, but they were planning to produce Episodes Seven, Eight and Nine. We still recall vividly when, at eight-year-old, our brother’s friend told us that not only had George Lucas created the greatest movie franchise and fictional universe known to man, but he was planning to expand the galaxy far, far away with three prequels and three sequels, making the Star Wars we knew just middle chapter of the grand epic. This changed everything, altering our view of what the future would be like. And for years we held onto the idea, this promise of the sequels, even when the prequels failed to live up to their predecessors, especially since the prequels failed to live up to their predecessors. But, at some point, you have to let go, and we chalked up the talk of sequels to the same gossip that had us believing for years in the eventual existence of Spaceballs 3: the Search for Part 2. So when out of the blue, out of the literal darkness in post-Sandy New York, came the news that, after all these years my brother’s friend was right, the future we envisioned will finally come to pass, we were absolutely astounded.

And even that revelation paled in comparison to the announcement of new life for Boy Meets World.

More: Why this is so unprecedented and the big questions moving forward (Feeny!)…

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Filed under Analysis, Be careful what you wish for, Bob Loblaw, Feeny, Freak Out Control, TGIF

Must Flee TV: ’30 Rock’ Season Six – The Penultimate Warrior

This is the penultimate entry in our series of posts looking back at the NBC’s Thursday Night comedies.  Still to come is a brief review of the ‘Community’ finale (not to be confused with our already published thoughts on the show’s move to Friday nights and the exiling of Dan Harmon), but today we check-in on ’30 Rock.’ 

30 Rock is a curious case.  We’ve contended for years that it often is the funniest show on NBC Thursday nights.  That is to say that it contains the most laughs per minute ratio (lpms) of the four programs.  However, that has never necessarily been a compliment.  In fact – and you might be smelling a “but” coming – that proclamation has frequently preceded our criticism of the show, or, more often, been the central tenet of our negative remarks.  For much of the show’s six seasons it’s felt as if Tina Fey’s creation valued the laugh above all else, and sometimes praying at the altar of the almighty chuckle does not pay the dividends one expects.

More: Does ’30 Rock’ use Idea Balls?

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day: It IS Easy Being Green

At least Kermit made it look like a breeze when he made a visit to The Colbert Report to analyze the Republican Southern primaries plug The Muppets on DVD, available Tuesday, March 20!

Okay, okay, so that video had nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day.  Let us make it up to you:

HAPPY GERBITZ DAY!

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Filed under Checks & Balances, Lady Holiday, Muppets

‘Family Guy’ Curveball: Aren’t the Griffin’s Supposed to be Red Sox Fans?

Well, apparently Stewie is not a member of Red Sox nation, and is, like us, a long suffering Mets fan.  Or maybe that’s just the joke that came up on the idea balls.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Tipped off by Joe & Evan

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Filed under Good Humor, Marconi & Cheese, Matt Christopher Books