Unoriginal Family Guy jokes

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):

1. 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.
2. 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?
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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!
   
5. "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."
   

Boxes full of Pepe!

Do I have followers at Autoblog?

I don't mean to flatter myself, but could Autoblog have possibly gotten an idea for a recent post from my Google Bling? You decide:

Penn State Riot!

Party on Beaver Ave!... BYOPS (Bring your own pepper spray)

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Mannequin in South Beach

crazy paddy

Solo Cup Company - Augusta, GA

Live blog: VP debate

21:20 And we're off!... and I'm going with an impromptu live blog. This is meant to be light-hearted... so enjoy! Let's start out with some Palinisms:

"Can I call you 'Joe'?" - during the handshake

"I'm not going to answer the questions the way Senator Biden and the moderator want, I'm talking to the American people."

"... he has a detailed plan, and now I'm going to give you some of those details."

Apparently she's had her firmware updated since the Couric interviews... Biden has his work cut out for him.

21:42 Current leader in the buzzword tally: fundamental. Biden has identified "The fundamental difference" between McCain and Obama for the economy, energy, and Iraq war. fundamental difference = a good thing? I don't know, but Obama better hope so.

21:56 I'm watching this on ABC... isn't it nice that there aren't any sponsors all over the screen during this nonstop action? Lovely.

22:05 Biden: "... go to joebiden.com..." - site dropper. I went there. I was redirected to Joe's my.barackobama.com profile. Well done, Joe.

22:12 Palin just dropped an elementrary school's name and now the teachers have a riot waiting for them tomorrow with students fighting for unspecified amounts of extra credit.

22:18 Palin is apparently unclear on the meaning of "Achilles heel". It's not an incoherent list of good qualites. Biden understands the tone of "Achilles heel", yet he mistakenly thinks "excessive passion" qualifies. hmm... I don't feel so bad about how poorly I handle this interview question now.

22:21 Biden almost turned on the waterworks. yikes.

22:33 Oh snap! Biden tossed out a few "God blesses" to wrap things up. Well played.

Winner: Biden?... it was a good debate. I enjoyed it. But I think I must say that Biden impressed me more than I thought... but Palin was tolerable, however she was in the red for me at the start. Nice to see some civil, educated discussion of the issues. Fun stuff... first live blog and I've somehow become a political dork.

A Great Tuesday

This is a pretty good Tuesday... one for which all Tuesdays to follow should be measured! OK... I'm going a little overboard, but with an inspirational Steelers MNF victory over the Ravens and a sweet trio of albums released today, this Tuesday isn't too shabby.

First, the Steelers game... our offensive line is horrific and with Simmons gone for the year, don't expect Trai Essex to improve the situation. It's also disappointing to lose Mendenhall for the season, but for a 4th string RB, Mewelde Moore filled in nicely. I will get back to him in a minute, but first... let's touch on how important Ben Roethlisberger is to this team. I'm proud to have him as our QB and it's great to hear him become more of a vocal leader of the team... especially without "The Chin" on the sideline. I like Tomlin, but he has more of a team-centered attitude. It's great for camaraderie, but not so good for lighting fires in bellies. So it's good to have Big Ben get in their face occasionally... and I think they will respect him for it. Hell... even the defense fed off of him after the TD pass to Santonio (particularly Harrison and Woodley). I am also extremely grateful to have Jeff Reed as our kicker. He has proved to be extremely reliable in tough environments and tight games, as well as drunken photo production. Well done. Finally... Mewelde... where have you been all of my life? I was watching the game in a bar and I didn't realize till a bit later that Mendenhall and Davis were out with injuries, so I was initially flippin' shit when I saw Double M getting so much work down the stretch. In fact, by my count... Mewelde was the go-to guy in a shocking 12 of our final 14 plays! Amazing! His fresh legs at the end of the game certainly helped, but he was breaking off and getting open very nicely when Ben was under pressure. I hope to see more of him to come.


The second part of this great Tuesday is because of some excellent CD releases. Anberlin, Amon Amarth, and Trivium all have new albums out today... and from what I can tell, they all sound remarkable after a few listens. I got the Anberlin album through newburycomics.com with a limited edition autographed 7-inch. I haven't listened much, but it's a pretty standard release for them... and that's a good thing. The first single from New Surrender is "Feel Good Drag", which was originally released on Don't Take Friendship Personal, but don't judge them for that... they explained themselves here.

Amon Amarth... wow! I had to go out and by this one too, however I didn't get the bobblehead set. I've only briefly listened to from Twilight of the Thunder God, but this is a monster album! The production is outstanding and Lars' vocals/growls are at an all-time astonishing level. They've really hit their stride as a band and this album sounds like the tightest, most intense offering to date. Have a listen on Myspace or the widget below.

Finally, Trivium has conquered their identity crisis with mistaking themselves for Metallica (see The Crusade) and put out a very good, technical, melodic metal album. I was always very disappointed with The Crusade's combination of promising musicianship held back by embarrassingly awful lyrics and cliched song structure. All indications are that Shogun is a great rebound album, and I'm particularly fond of their first single "Down from the Sky".

Not a bad Tuesday, huh?... and I didn't even mention Iron Man being released on DVD!

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