It's 'Family Guy' again, so let the hissing begin

It's 'Family Guy' again,
so let the hissing begin

Fox 'toon seems to offend everyone but our critic

By Andrew Wallenstein

   TV critics can get especially crotchety during the summer, and it’s not difficult to understand why.
   Though programming is clearly inferior during the TV industry’s off-season, we’re forced to stay indoors and sustain our eternal vigil over the airwaves while the warm weather beckons.
    No wonder many of my brethren have flown off the handle recently.
    What else can explain the undue outrage lavished on “Fear Factor” and “Spy TV,” NBC’s double dose of reality programming that has critics issuing fatwas for Jeff Zucker, the network’s entertainment president.
    To see these series as some sort of quantum leap in cultural degradation is bizarre to say the least, but, hey, that’s what the heat does to some brains.
    So brace yourselves for the next possible round of cri de coeur from critics: the return of “Family Guy” (Wednesdays, 9:30-10 p.m., began July 11th).
    The animated series was presumably canceled in March of last year, but now Fox is reintroducing it for a summer run. The network shocked everyone at its upfront presentation by announcing “Family” would anchor its Thursday night lineup this fall after spending over a year off the air.
    When “Family” first premiered, critics dismissed it as a “Simpsons” knockoff, ripping its relentlessly politically incorrect humor, incessant pop cultural references, and general crudity and cruelty.
    And that’s exactly what I liked about the show. Any series that has to avert a potential advertiser boycott has to be doing something right.
    “Family” looked like it could do no wrong when it debuted after the 2000 Super Bowl and became Fox’s highest-rated new series in the post-“Simpsons” time slot.
    Its specialty demo was the young males advertisers lust after. At the tender age of 25, Seth MacFarlane was treated as a wunderkind worthy of his three-year production deal with Fox.
    But how the mighty fall. A dizzying series of ill-advised time-slot changes during its second season torpedoed its once brilliant prospects. “Family” was switched to Thursdays opposite “WWF Smackdown!”, another series that obsessed young males, and got yanked after two weeks.
    The series reappeared in December and was relocated to Tuesdays in March, but by then it was too late.
    “Family” also hit hot water often for offending just about every racial, religious and sexual group imaginable. Its most notable roasting at the hands of the critics came from a joke that depicted the head of a JFK Pez dispenser getting blown off.
     Funny how those same critics didn’t bellyache when “Seinfeld” mimicked the JFK assassination in the episode featuring former baseball star Keith Hernandez, which is still regarded as a classic.
    Who would have thought a cartoon about a lovable Rhode Island family could kick up so much controversy.
    But then again the Griffins are no ordinary family, considering they have a talking dog named Brian who is smarter than all of his human caretakers and a talking baby named Stewie who seems intent on killing his mother.
    Thankfully, this week’s “Family” showed that MacFarlane has lost none of his irreverence: Brian the dog develops a nasty cocaine habit after getting a job sniffing out drugs with the local police force.
    You gotta love a show with dialogue like “I’m not insensitive, Lois, I just don’t see why we have to cancel our vacation because the dog is a cokehead.”
    At the height of his addiction, Brian even brings home a crack whore he’s dating, to whom Mrs. Griffin politely offers a tissue to wipe the blood off her drug-infested nose.
    And if anyone thought “Family” would stop poking fun at everything else on TV, think again. By my count, in the course of its return episode, “Family” managed to skewer “Behind the Music,” “The Blair Witch Project,” Robert Downey Jr., Toucan Sam, “ChiPs,” “Got Milk?” commercials, “Rocky & Bullwinkle,” David Letterman, George Harrison and “Charles in Charge” (in order of appearance).
    Considering all “Family” has been through, it faces a most unbelievable challenge.
    When the fall begins, it will face yet another test as it returns to its impossible Thursday slot, but I have faith. This is one cartoon that just refuses to die, and I couldn’t be happier.

-Andrew Wallenstein is the television critic for Media Life.

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