I love Family Guy, but I feel obligated to reveal the origins of some of their jokes. I thought that Family Guy discontinued using recycled jokes after Season 4, however this previous episode, Tales of a Third Grade Nothing, was potentially their worst writing to date. Every laugh was predictable and the writing was too "jokey". I would have shrugged this off, since I should have better things to do than write a blog post about a cartoon... alas I don't and I'm enraged that the people of Diggnation have given 2,945 diggs to an unoriginal Family Guy gag. I truly don't understand why some things become so popular on Digg, but I'll save that for another post. Right now, I want to expose some unauthentic Family Guy jokes (and this does not include the countless similarities to The Simpons):
- Grape stomping lady from Tales of a Third Grade Nothing (S7E6) - Stewie reenacts (jump to 11:50) a popular and hilarious viral video. The only problem is that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia briefly mentioned this same blooper a few weeks ago. They didn't present it the same way, but they made the Family Guy writers feel "OK" to use this particualr viral video. The gutless writers didn't take the risk to use a different or potentially better blooper, they were comfortable with what has already been tested to get a laugh. This is uncreative and very weak. And God knows there are many more clips to choose from.
- Jesus Christ magic from Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story - This one I wasn't aware of, but it caused a lawsuit. Pretty bad. Is that supposed to be parody?
- Air horn censorship from PTV (S4E14) - One of numerous gags from Season 4 that were taken directly from Arrested Development. I'm not saying this originated from AD, but I'm very suspicious that Family guy writers didn't get their idea from Lucille's "rape horn" in Afternoon Delight.
- Snoopy doghouse from Brian Goes Back to College (S4E15) - Brian is bummed and plays the role as Snoopy. But only a few months earlier on Arrested Development, George Michael acts like Charlie Brown after being dumped my Egg. See the doghouse in the back!
- "Up here, Brian. Up here." from The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz (S4E18) - This is probably their worst offense. After being contaminated with bad holy water, Stewie is quarantined in a bubble. Then while trying to change his diaper himself, Stewie flashes Brian and says, "Up here, Brian. Up here." This was also taken from Arrersted Development when Kitty Sanchez returns to work with fake boobs and says to Michael, "Up here, Michael. Up here."
