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"Death Has A Shadow" - Season 1, Episode 1 (The Family Guys Podcast)
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts
00:00:16
Speaker
Now, there was an inner debate about how I start this podcast, and part of me wanted to be like, do I just go like, na na na na na na, and then start talking? I think I'll settle for our typical format with our other show.
Podcast Goals and Origins
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome, everybody, to the first edition of The Family Guys. My name is Cody, better known as Tookie24.
00:00:44
Speaker
alongside my co-host, Paul, better known as Sim4TheWind. Now it's funny to introduce us in that way because we have a pre-established little blip of space.
00:00:59
Speaker
on the internet where we are known under, you know, those kind of, those handles, those nicknames. We'll get into that, but... Call them monikers. Yes. For this show though, I'm like, what do we do? How do I start this? It's so different from what we normally do, but this is going to be
00:01:18
Speaker
a podcast where our goal, I don't know if we'll get there, but it is our goal, is to go through every episode of Family Guy, episode by episode.
00:01:32
Speaker
I did want to start off by kind of talking about us, though, and who we are, our friendship and how we got to the point where we're like, let's start a Family Guy podcast.
Friendship through Shared Interests
00:01:47
Speaker
If you think about it, it makes total sense, given the fact that 50 percent of the references that you and I throw out are our Family Guy references.
00:01:56
Speaker
A bunch of inside jokes that you and I have are direct references to Family Guy and just little things that we'll say all the time, like, ah, it's a jar of preserves. Or, yeah, it's a great way to stay in shape. Like, it's... So our friendship started in like, what, 2016, 2017? You and I...
00:02:19
Speaker
Are both known from the the video game side of things the ea nhl series specifically both as You know really really big hockey fans and being content creators based around A game like that. Yeah, that's how our friendship started and where it was
00:02:37
Speaker
Um for those and the vast majority of people that find this maybe ever will know us from that scene Maybe there are people who have no idea. So it's the thought of hey, let's fill in those gaps. But um initially You know, we were going to do like a collaboration Video surrounding the video game that I completely tanked By taking it way too seriously but it led to
00:03:06
Speaker
further Discord calls basically, or Skype calls it was, as you reminded me. Before Discord. Where we just were hanging out, talking, and obviously as those conversations continued on, and we discover so much of our humor has been crafted
00:03:27
Speaker
by a show like Family Guy and molded by it. And it's only, you know, kind of persisted, I would say. Like you mentioned, all the inside jokes that we have over the last couple of years. And it led us to the point where I forget which one of us brought this up, but just the idea of like, we should do a Family Guy podcast and just go through it. And it makes all the sense in the world for us.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah. And like for me, like, you know, in where I grew up and I'm, of course, four years older than you. But, you know, my sister watched a lot of South Park. That was my introduction to cartoon comedy. I'm like, Oh, that's kind of cool. And I liked South Park.
00:04:08
Speaker
But when Family Guy dropped, that was like my show, you know what I mean? That became that one show that, as you said, shaped kind of my sense of humor and something that really connected with me.
00:04:24
Speaker
And yeah, it's just I was obsessed with it. I would legit watch episodes. I would get the DVDs. My mom would buy me every single volume. And I would also watch them with commentary from Seth MacFarlane and some of the others, because I was a fucking nerd.
00:04:42
Speaker
I am a nerd, I should say. And yeah, I love watching things with comedy, you know, movie commentaries, everything like that. I love hearing all those extra tidbits. Yeah, I mean, I was I was kind of the same way, right? Like growing up, you know, early, very early 2000s. Right. So it's like I was born in 94.
00:05:06
Speaker
So it's one of those things where, you know, by the time I'm kind of like, oh, more adults or teenage featured, you know, comedy or stuff like that. It's the early 2000s. Right. By the time I'm like, oh, OK, I'm watching Nickelodeon. But I discover that, you know, there's this this show called Family Guy on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network starting at 11 p.m. and stuff like that. And yeah, I think it was there. Right. Like South Park.
00:05:37
Speaker
I mean, obviously you could have your own podcast about South Park and just the importance of it, let alone going episode by episode. And then all the other shows that happened to be out there, but yeah, there was something.
00:05:48
Speaker
about the resurgence of Family Guy, which we hope to get to throughout the lifecycle of this podcast, our little passion project here, where, you know, you get to talk about here's a show that starts off so hot, but then ends up getting canceled.
00:06:06
Speaker
and then finds new life through those replays. Yeah. And ultimately leads to the show coming back and to this date hasn't stopped. I think it got canceled like another time and then switched networks. And then I can't remember exactly. I'm sure when we start getting to that stage that we'll learn a little bit more about that. But yeah, I think there's been two different times where the show was canceled and then brought back because there's just this following.
00:06:33
Speaker
of people like us who loved the show so much and needed it to continue in so many ways. One thing I wanted to kind of talk about and ask you as well, do you recall the first time you saw a Family Guy episode, do you remember which one it was and where you were when you saw it? Because I can still remember it just so vividly.
00:06:56
Speaker
I wish I could be that detailed. But for me at this point, it's just one of those things where it just it happened and you don't remember how
Influences on Family Guy
00:07:05
Speaker
it happened. But then it just feels like, oh, yeah, I've been watching the show the whole time type of thing. So I don't have it down to that specific detail. But I am very intrigued to hear the story from you. So, yeah, I was like 10, 11, 12, somewhere in that I can't remember my exact age, but somewhere around there.
00:07:23
Speaker
And that was quite recently after, you know, first season dropped, you know, ninety nine. And so, yeah, it was a little bit after that, obviously, I was at a sleepover at my friend Alex's house. We used to do these sleepovers. We would stay up all night playing like Halo or Starcraft and siphon filter, like all these, you know, older school games.
00:07:44
Speaker
And then, you know, watch stuff on Adult Swim because that was like the cool thing to do because it's late at night. Parents are asleep. You can't get in trouble. And it was this first episode that I saw and I was just cracking up at this baby trying to kill his mother the entire time and just being this evil genius. And I thought it was such a unique premise for a show and maybe laughing from that moment. I was I was hooked. And that thus started my journey. And I got more into it, of course, as it went along and
00:08:13
Speaker
But yeah, that was my first exposure to Family Guy, and I was instantly hooked. There's something about those days, right? Those very early days where all of a sudden you realize, I can get away with staying up late. And then even trying to stay up late. It's funny, so I don't have the specific Family Guy memory. But we had a whole two liter of Pepsi. We were fine.
00:08:37
Speaker
My first specific memory of trying to stay up past midnight, oh my God, past midnight, was Comedy Central, funny enough, was airing South Park, the movie, the bigger, longer, and uncut. And it was a source of pride for 10, 11-year-old me to be like, I stayed up late and I watched this movie, isn't that not? My best friend that made it through.
00:09:05
Speaker
that particular movie, but yeah, it's funny how those kind of things still stick out, you know? I wish I knew what Family Guy episode I had first seen because it would have been one of the early ones too, I'm sure. But don't want to say it definitively, right? Because there's just a lot of memories from initially finding that show and that's what I kind of hope we recapture.
00:09:28
Speaker
on this podcast. It's going to be a lot of nostalgia. I know that. Yes. And us millennials love our nostalgia. Yes, we do. We do. We do. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of the spirit, the essence of what we're aiming for the show to be as we go again, episode by episode. And we're going to be looking as well, at least when it's overly relevant for kind of the history.
00:09:53
Speaker
behind a certain episode or the show in general. We're not going to go full Seth MacFarlane biography here, but I do find it interesting to kind of look back at how this show started. So unless there was anything else you wanted to cover kind of in our little intro there, I think, you know, we'll kind of fill in the gaps for more people.
00:10:18
Speaker
You know who might not be as familiar with us in terms of how we got here as the podcast goes on But I wanted to get into the backstory Of the pilot which is what we're going to be covering today titled death as a shadow and It was very first and foremost. It was very fun to go through this and yeah You know kind of get some of these little details where it's like, okay. That's how it happened. That makes sense and
00:10:46
Speaker
Why not start from the beginning with it because, you know, you talk about someone like Seth MacFarlane who's made the career that he has for himself. Surprise, surprise. Illustration captures his imagination from a very early age.
00:11:02
Speaker
He mentioned this story during an interview with NPR in 2011. He created a comic strip with a character kneeling at an altar taking communion. And then he asks the priest, can I have fries with that?
00:11:21
Speaker
The paper gets printed, he gets an angry letter from a local priest and it was like his first taste. Like you're talking about someone who hadn't even graduated high school yet, who had that sense of humor locked down that we still see to this day and in this first episode.
00:11:39
Speaker
no less. And someone who you could kind of tell reveled in the ideas a lot of people did at that time of just being like, negative attention for cartoons, kind of fun. You know, you would see that obviously throughout the, you know, into the late 90s when you have shows like South Park that, you know, aren't just flipping the idea of what
00:12:01
Speaker
you know, adult animation is, so to speak, but they're flipping the idea of just what entertainment is on its head. And what you can do and say, and these are people that push the boundaries and have such a huge cultural impact, like South Park family guy, they have had massive cultural impacts. And I know it's everyone kind of has that when they're younger teenagers, especially, and you can go back to there's always this big kind of cultural
00:12:30
Speaker
like a spark. And that's, you know, I had a better word in my head, but now I can't remember it like a catalyst.
00:12:36
Speaker
And so like 80s, even yeah, 80s wise, it was like snowboarding was this big cultural revolution catalyst. And it's a bunch of teenagers reveling in the idea of being outcasts, of being someone that people looked down upon. South Park family guy, you know, comes to this comedy animation. There are these huge cultural catalysts with that same thing. And I think, you know, Seth gets a taste of that and be like, yeah, I'm going to piss some people off. But when you're that age, you like that.
00:13:02
Speaker
And then you kind of discover a little bit of something. And I find that, you know, that's just such a cool just, you know, inter like first kind of introduction to him going down this path. So surprise, surprise as well. Graduates High School in 1991 heads to the Rhode Island School of Design majors in animation as he describes it in follow up interviews. His goal was to eventually work for Disney, which
00:13:32
Speaker
I mean, yeah, you're going to an animation school in the early 90s. And what is the goal going to be other than to work for Disney? Dude, yeah, the Disney movies dropped in the 90s to Lion King Toy Story. That was the golden age of Disney, man. I mean, we view it that way because we grew up with it. I'm sure there's other great stuff, too. But that was really cool.
00:13:53
Speaker
Well, it's funny because I was going to ask you, right, because 1991, so we're we're actually talking before the Lion King drops by a couple of years. You know, Lion King doesn't come out until June of 94. Yeah, which is nuts. But in the early 90s, there are some of these that honestly I haven't seen.
00:14:13
Speaker
But from an animation standpoint, I mean, first and foremost, talk about the late 80s, right? Like the last Disney animated film of the 80s is The Little Mermaid. I mean, they're heading into the new decade on a high note, you know, throughout the late 80s as well. One of my favorites, it was a co-production in fairness, most of them were, but Oliver & Company came out in the late 80s as well, which I think is,
00:14:40
Speaker
maybe still the most underrated animated film of all time. And maybe that's my hipster pick is for Oliver and company. If you're not a fan of Billy Joel, then you're probably not a fan at all. But you know, in the early nineties,
00:14:56
Speaker
You know, Beauty and the Beast comes out in 91. Aladdin comes out in 92. We talked about Lion King coming out in 94. I mean, this is this is Disney firing on all cylinders. Yeah, that's the point. The first movie I ever saw in a theater.
00:15:13
Speaker
was actually a replay of Snow White. My mom took me that. That was the first movie I sat in a movie theater for. And then, of course, saw tons and tons of other Disney movies. That was, I mean, that's the introduction to so many people's childhood, like in movie going is Disney movies, because, well, they're there and they were everywhere and they're good for kids. And, yeah, what's funny is I'm pretty sure I'm going to make you feel old here, I'm sure, even though, as you mentioned, you're only four years older.
00:15:43
Speaker
My first theater experience that I can remember was to see the very first ice age. Oh, God. Yeah, I was I was in late elementary school when I saw that. It's amazing what a four year gap can represent. Yes. Yeah, especially when you're thinking of like the relative timeline, you know, four years is massive when you're in sixth grade. It's a second grader. It's a baby.
00:16:12
Speaker
a literal child. I don't care if you're, I don't care if you're eight, you're a child, which I mean, yeah. Getting back to the set stuff though, you know, wants to work for Disney, but surprise, surprise in the era that we're talking about 1991, 1992, he is heavily influenced by The Simpsons, a show that was averaging
00:16:33
Speaker
over 12 million viewers an episode through their first four seasons in the late 80s, early 90s. Just an absolute juggernaut, right? It is an entirely different podcast to talk about The Simpsons impact and legacy, but we will get to talk about The Simpsons a lot throughout the course of the show. There's a couple of correlations between these two shows. Just a few. Just a few.
00:17:01
Speaker
Jump ahead to Seth's senior year in college, 1995, and he makes his thesis film, The Life of Larry. We'll talk more about that in detail in a moment. But the end result of this is that his professor, which shout out to this professor, my God, how this person changed the course of TV history, the professor submitted the film to Hannah Barbera. And Seth lands a job there a year or so later.
00:17:32
Speaker
Now it has been stated that he landed the role more so on the back of his writing skill rather than the direct animation itself but still ends up at Hanna-Barbera ends up getting to work on the Cartoon Network side of things working for big shows like Dexter's Lab Cow and Chicken and more primarily Johnny Bravo as a writer and a storyboard artist, which is a
00:17:57
Speaker
I mean, it says enough, right? The experience that you would have gotten throughout those shows and the connections that he made through the Johnny Bravo side of things. You know, meeting famous people, Jack Sheldon was out there. He was famous for his time as a band member on the Murph Griffith Show, Murph Griffin show that is. And he would meet someone else through the Johnny Bravo experience that
00:18:26
Speaker
He'd have a bit part here and there on Family Guy in the future. I believe it's pronounced Adam Wiest. I think it's actually Adam Wie. No one messes with Adam Wie. God, what a legend that man is. When I saw that note, I ended up looking through Adam West's Wikipedia again and just kind of
00:18:54
Speaker
You know, reliving a lot of the career that he had as expansive as it is. Incredible stuff. You move forward, but you have to go backwards first to talk about that thesis film again, because it was the life of Larry. But during his time, it led during his time at Hanna-Barbera, it led to a sequel, Larry and Steve.
00:19:22
Speaker
which features a middle-aged man and an intellectual dog named Steve. Think you can see where that's heading, right?
00:19:36
Speaker
Larry and Steve airs on Cartoon Network's world premiere tunes in 1997 and is seen by executives at Fox. And at this time, Fox is heavily invested in animation. We talked about what was going on with South Park and Comedy Central, but Fox at the time
00:19:57
Speaker
You're talking about The Simpsons still, before it hits like the Zombie Simpsons stage. You're talking about King of the Hill, which is absolutely crushing it ratings wise. Futurama is there as well, because of course they gave Mac reigning an extra show, why wouldn't they? And Futurama is one of my favorite series of all time as well. Fox is just killing it on the animation front.
00:20:23
Speaker
And the fact that they looked to Seth MacFarlane off the back of these two animated shorts to say, hey, this could be something. I mean, it just kind of shows the keen eye, I think, that they had at the time as well for what could be successful.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, as much heat as Fox get in as, you know, questionable as they are a company. I mean, that's that's what a run like what incredible scouting and a good eye for as just great market research. And I mean,
00:20:56
Speaker
Essentially a doubling down on what the culture shift is which is animated comedies i mean first decades it's that is that was like the lead and they're still coming out to this day maybe not as big as they once were maybe there's some oversaturation but yeah i mean king of the hill simpsons futurama those are all.
00:21:14
Speaker
absolute classics and things that are still referenced to this day as well, like even maybe more so than Family Guy is in a lot of ways, at least for Simpsons and King of the Hill for sure. Yeah. This leads to Seth getting six months to grind away at completing a 15-minute hand-drawn pilot on a $50,000 budget for
00:21:42
Speaker
You know, the original idea, funny enough, too, was that they were going to debut this show on Mad TV.
00:21:51
Speaker
before they decided to go the pilot route. It was going to be essentially a series of shorts similar to what The Simpsons happened to be and how they got their start on the Tracey Allman show, but that deal falls through. You just have to wonder what would have been had it just been a part of Mad TV, but they didn't have the budget or wouldn't dedicate the money that he would have needed for an animation exclusive project.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'm kind of thankful for that. Just given the audience differential, the potential audience and stuff like that. I mean, it could have been so very different, especially considering Mad TV was kind of the very, very little brother of Saturday Night Live in a lot of ways. I mean, it kind of filled that gap, right, of the alternative. Yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
You know, I think in a lot of ways and even to this day, you know, Saturday Night Live is the the adult version of what a sketch comedy show was supposed to be where Mad TV. I mean, I had my like, you know, moments of watching Mad TV when it was when it was doing really well. And it was definitely more of the hey, we're going to target the you know, the 18 to 35 demographic as opposed to, you know, the 35 up.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah. God, I could talk about mad TV for a while. Another, um, influential show to say the least, but McFarland completes that pilot and.
00:23:21
Speaker
Fox likes it enough that they bring the series to air. They make that order in July of 1998, and they order 13 episodes, seven of which ended up airing during the first season of
Family Guy's Launch and Reception
00:23:35
Speaker
Family Guy. And the thing that blew my mind, by the time Family Guy is picked up, Seth MacFarlane is 24 years old. That is absolutely insane, man.
00:23:48
Speaker
Like that, that trajectory, it's not that he didn't like put in the work at Hanna-Barbera and stuff like that, but that just, it's a skyrocketed trajectory. When you think about how many people, yeah, how many people would have, you know, probably had to toil away for 10, 15 years just to get a shot and he wastes no time moving up that ladder. Yeah. I mean, that is,
00:24:14
Speaker
That's just crazy. I mean, thinking what I was doing at 24, like that's just like the work ethic it needed for that, like the fortune who you know, and, and just to get that opportunity and to have the talent, the work ethic and everything else to back that up and capitalize on your chance. That's, you know, it's, it's obviously a little bit of luck involved, but it's, you have to capitalize on those moments. You know, those moments are few and far between in life. And if you.
00:24:41
Speaker
You gotta jump on them when they're there, and wow, 24, man. It brings us to Family Guy's debut less than four years after the life of Larry was created with Seth being a senior in high school, or a senior in college, I should say. Senior in high school would be nuts. Yeah. So based off the trajectory, hey, it's not that far off.
00:25:05
Speaker
January 31st, 1999. The pilot airs after Super Bowl 33. We talked about our fandom of sports. Do you recall Super Bowl 33? Um, Broncos Falcons? Correct.
00:25:23
Speaker
Well done. Yeah. Everyone forgets, at least I do at times that LA had another Super Bowl because that one in 97 so big, obviously it's also against the Packers who I am a fan of and that hurt, especially going to school the next day, but yeah. Talking about going to school the next day, I've told this story before as a fan of the Patriots.
00:25:48
Speaker
I did not go to school the next day, nor did numerous people all across New England when they lost the perfect season to the Giants. Dude, I was watching the news and they, it was news 13 here in the great state of Maine, and they just went outside of Dunkin Donuts.
00:26:13
Speaker
and just interviewed these people. Stress eating. Stress eating and just moping, sunken faces, depressed. Power of sports. The other thing to note before we get into the episode itself, this debut helped in part because it aired after the Super Bowl, but this was viewed by 22.
00:26:42
Speaker
million people the night. Wow. I don't recall that like being how it started either. I don't remember. I remember the Super Bowl. I don't remember the family guy like appearing afterwards.
00:26:54
Speaker
That's going to say a monstrously large spotlight for a brand new show created by a 24 year old debuting after the Super Bowl. I mean, again, it just it showcases how invested Fox happened to be in animation at the time and how much they believe this could be a hit. And it goes through its turmoil over the years. But ultimately, here we are.
00:27:23
Speaker
all these years later, still talking about it. And it brings us to the debut episode itself.
Review of First Episode
00:27:32
Speaker
Death has a shadow. Yeah, and before we even get into it, I'm gonna bring up, you'll notice that with the first five, I think five titled episodes, they all have death in it or murder or something of that degree. And the whole idea for Seth was he was gonna name them
00:27:52
Speaker
very noir-like and very because he's a huge obviously a huge huge fan of old-school film show tunes and shit like that and it was very quickly abandoned because they realized there's only so much you can reference about death and stuff without it just getting weird at some point and yeah difficult and and just it didn't make a whole lot of sense for the direction that the show was going so it was yeah very quickly abandoned but that just a little fun little fact about the early titles of the episodes
00:28:21
Speaker
Death has a shadow. I never met the dead man. Chitty, chitty death bang and mind over murder. Yeah. Yeah. Unless number five, a hero sits next door, which is the, uh,
00:28:37
Speaker
the introduction of one of the most beloved characters. We'll get to that when we get to it. Wanted to mention as well, because I was looking up like, oh, okay, written and directed by, and that's a key theme here. This first episode was written by a man named Peter Shin, who is still working on the show to this day. Ended up winning an Annie Award for his directing in North by North Co-Hog, had several Emmy nominations. For the most part,
00:29:05
Speaker
they had they had a core in place that has still been there at least for most of them up until recent years. It's just very interesting, you know, because you talk about some shows and the changes that they have early on, for the most part, outside of a couple of instances that will get to but it seems like they had that kind of
00:29:25
Speaker
You know, on screen talent group lockdown, they had the people actually, you know, making animating and producing the show lockdown. And that helped, I think, keep its consistency throughout. Certainly. Yeah. And obviously brilliant writing that Seth has also an incredible voice actor. And notice that I wish I had like counted just the sheer amount of voices that he did, but he's just everywhere.
00:29:50
Speaker
in the show still is to this day, but particularly in these early episodes, if there's a filler character or a small character, it's generally Seth doing that voice. And I mean, talk about a jack of all trades and an absolute genius for what he was able to do. And I mean, in the opening scene, he's put several of those characters.
00:30:11
Speaker
The first shot we get is an establishing shot of the Griffin home and the entire family watching TV, which is perfect. And the very first joke to be told is Brady Bunch related, as they reference an episode where there was tattling about smoking, but they spin it into four hours in the snake pit and the chamber of fire.
00:30:37
Speaker
Just the over-the-top insanity is, again, just something that draws you into the show, and... I mean, just the way it's played, too, by Seth as Daddy Brady. Just the whole, very straightforward, I don't know, it just brings a smile to my face every time I see it, like, ugh.
00:30:58
Speaker
you get the the reference humor that is all throughout family guy's dna and then immediately after you get the absurdity where peter jokes about uh how the parades lived in a terrible terrible neighborhood where all the griffins have to deal with this jamaima's witnesses so you immediately go from the reference humor to the absurdity and that that's what i remembered about this first episode the second it started i'm just like oh yeah the jamaima's witnesses joke which
00:31:26
Speaker
I think to me, I don't know, it's dumb, but it sets the bar for what this show is within the first 30 to 45 seconds. You have a grasp of what Family Guy is and whether or not you're going to like it, I feel like. Yeah, it's it's everything. It's pop culture references, old or older show references that influence Seth in some way or that he enjoyed in some way. And like, yeah, you said it just just weird like Jemima's witnesses.
00:31:56
Speaker
Obviously, it's just such a hilarious play on words, essentially. Yeah, pretty much those first few seconds, you know everything that Family Guy's about and talk about. And it's a cold open. It's before the intro. They did a lot more cold opens in the past of where you start off directly in the action before just the theme song and things like that, which I love cold opens. I'll always love cold opens.
00:32:25
Speaker
On the other side of the intro, we hear Meg for the first time. And I know you picked up this note as well, but being voiced by Lacey Chabert, who would provide the voice of Meg for the first 15 episodes of the series, although she's uncredited for the role due to the lack of a contract, she would leave the show to focus on school and her role on Party of Five. The hell's Party of Five? Yeah, it sounds good.
00:32:55
Speaker
I'm like, well, another thing that's referenced. Oh, man. You get Lois as well, voiced by Alex Bornstein from day one as well as you know what? I hadn't recalled this. I remembered once I read it. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. But also voicing Trisha Takanawa, Loretta Brown, Lois, his mom, Barbara Peter Schmidt. I mean,
00:33:22
Speaker
And the crazy thing was that I didn't know this part of it was that Alex Bornstein was a stage actress by trade and she auditioned for the show practically sight unseen.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, it was just like, hey, we think it'll work out. And I saw a lot of kind of details about like how her voice and how she'd read things and how it played out. But obviously now you talk about it. You can't imagine Lois having a different voice. It would be perhaps even more jarring than the idea of, okay, you don't have Mila Kunis voicing Meg for the first 15 episodes of the show.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah. And honestly, the voice switch for for Meg actually kind of worked because for the first bunch of episodes, Meg's character is just like this normal girl trying to fit in. Yes. And we're going to obviously talk about a lot about character development through that. But like that plays better with that voice. And the Mila Kunis voice definitely plays better better to the later iteration of Megan.
00:34:21
Speaker
I know early on there's a lot of people, of fans of the show being like, oh, you know, why couldn't Meg just stick as this normal girl trying to fit in and stuff like that? And Seth's response to that was, well, normal is boring and it doesn't work for comedy. Like there's no, you can't, there's only so much humor that you can pull out of just this, oh, I'm just trying to fit in type of mentality. So, and the same thing with, it's just a one-dimensional, same thing with Stewie, his only aspiration is to,
00:34:49
Speaker
Take over the world and be an evil genius and kill his mother and stuff like that again funny as hell but that doesn't last for twenty plus seasons that they're on now right i think nineteen yeah and it's you know obviously it's just the one dimension you have to break away from that at some point and let the characters evolve.
00:35:08
Speaker
You have Lois telling Meg that most of the world's problems stem from poor self-image, as Meg is asking for lip fillers, leading to the first cutaway gag of a jacked Jewish man at the gym surrounded by women while Hitler struggles to do bicep curls. We are like two minutes into this show and we already have a joke about Hitler.
00:35:37
Speaker
Yeah, why not? I mean, just I love that you brought up how Seth got his start just with the controversy. I mean, that right there is just it's pushing the envelope as far as you can. I mean, that is a hot button. I mean, this is 1999. Yeah. Again, like the very beginning of 1999 where
00:36:01
Speaker
You talk about South Park being what it is. The Sopranos had just debuted like two weeks before a show that really kind of continued to push the change of what TV could be. I mean, that's viewed as the catalyst for
00:36:21
Speaker
What TV would become in the 2000s? Especially you talk about a show like Breaking Bad that doesn't exist without the sopranos and no, you know again, it's it was that evolution of culture and what's acceptable and the pushback that the counterculture of the 90s and how that evolved and
00:36:41
Speaker
from like the grunge start in 91 up to like 95. And then how different like 96 and 97 were. And the 90s were fucking weird, man. They were so weird. You go from, like I said, the grunge counterculture, you get the Macarena, but then you get shows like this that are pushing it. People didn't know what the hell to do. It's just all the weird shit that's like, whatever, man. I'm just going to put this out there. Hey, if people like it, they like it. If they don't, they don't.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah, also to be a big part of the soprano success was this kind of Exodus and TV success in general, this Exodus of
00:37:20
Speaker
In the movie business, writers are sometimes the lowest on the totem pole. And so a lot of them at one point said, you know what? Let's go somewhere where we're higher on the totem pole and they start doing TV and Sopranos was like one of those first big shows which featured a lot of these Hollywood type writers who you could see the freaking sheer talent. And when they have more control over the show, writers in TV are often the show runners.
00:37:43
Speaker
look what you get and just how beautiful we have it with all the great television shows that have, and also it's more consistent work, all the great television shows that have come. Yeah, you can go back through a lot of the Sopranos episodes and see people who wrote an episode or multiple and it's like, oh, and then you look at like their IMDB and see what they've done since it's crazy.
00:38:07
Speaker
We get introduced to Stewie, who was working on what appears to be an array gun. Threatening Lois, of course, because as you mentioned right out of the gates, they set it up as that is his goal, is to kill Lois.
00:38:24
Speaker
It's just great character introductions. You get to learn so much about each one through the smallest of little things. And that in and of itself is excellent writing. But yeah, it looks like I think it turns out to be a mind control device. It's just the fact could be anything. And I love that it's always
00:38:47
Speaker
They are children's toys, and he's just such a freaking engineering and everything genius that he's turning it into this real threat.
00:38:56
Speaker
You have Meg touching the thermostat, which rattles Peter and three neighborhood dads. Like, I love the joke. I'm like, you can't touch the thermostat because dad will know. And Peter Barge is in the room. Who touched the thermostat? But the fact that they take it that next step further with three guys from the neighborhood being like, Peter, is everything OK? Yeah. Again, it.
00:39:20
Speaker
just such a simple straightforward joke but it's the idea of okay here's a you know a pretty played out joke how can we amplify it a little bit more and that's what you continue to see just throughout this episode
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's like hammering that joke home, which is funny in and of itself. As long as the jokes kind of has some basis, and that's obviously kind of a more older school joke. Don't touch dad's thermostat and shit like that. But I mean, so much of Seth MacFarlane's influence comes from the 20s and the 50s, I feel like, just the things that he likes. And you'll see that. We'll see that a lot in Family Guy, taking one joke and just
00:39:59
Speaker
beating it, beating it, not even a dead horse, beating a comatose horse because it's kind of funny. And just until the point of near death, then you're like, all right, you can go. Yeah, you beat the horse to death, resuscitate it and then keep beating. Yes, yes. Because eventually, OK, this isn't funny anymore. You just keep beating that horse until it gets funny again. Yeah. You get Brian's first ever line in the show as he walks into the room squeezing past Peter saying, whoa, ass a hoy.
00:40:29
Speaker
Um, I just found it funny that that's the first thing you hear Brian say on the show. Yeah. And also I think good introduction to his character is, you know, almost the more straight man to Peter's funny guy. Uh, you know, Peter, it's, you know, it's seven o'clock and your pants are still on. What's the occasion? Uh, Peter, as the man of the house orders Lois to give him permission to go to a stag party.
00:41:01
Speaker
in which Peter promises not to drink, and then you get a cutaway regarding Peter's drinking in which he is drinking communion and responds, well, Christ must have been wasted 24-7. Sound familiar in regards to what we mentioned earlier? There's quite a few of them in this episode.
00:41:25
Speaker
that he would replay from Life of Larry or the follow-up as well in terms of those jokes. Yeah. Peter also gets drunk and falls through a table off of one lick of buttermilk ice cream. Uh-huh. I do have one more thing to point out about that communion wine cutaway. That is actually used in a future episode as well. I believe the only cutaway gag or only joke that is actually
00:41:52
Speaker
read, like not even retold, but like copy pasted in another one, which is very interesting. There's another future episode to where they go back to where Brian and Stu we go back to this episode as well. Yeah, which I'm excited for that one too. You get the cutaway. Um, this, this, this is one of those jokes for us that all the time, um, they cut away to the movie theater.
00:42:22
Speaker
Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks. Everything it says is a stick. I have AIDS. It's ridiculous. But that Philadelphia joke was another one from the Larry and Steve set up. Like he fired them off back to back here in terms of like, I know this good material I'm putting out there. And to this day, 25 years later, I cannot
00:42:49
Speaker
think of Tom Hanks's name, without that being the first thing that comes to mind. Of anything else Tom Hanks has done, it's this gag that comes to mind for me. That's the magic of a good fucking joke, is that it can take something that you know and love and literally rewire your brain. We can only think of that when we hear the name Tom Hanks. My brain immediately goes, Tom Hanks. It's incredible.
00:43:19
Speaker
At the stag party, we get introduced to Quagmire for the first time, saying, who wants to play drink the beer? They cut away to a random dude. Hey, man, your clock won't flush. And that immediately segues into Quagmire asking if Peter brought the porno, in which case Peter says, did I bring the porno? And they begin to watch Asablanca.
00:43:50
Speaker
Once again, Seth's love for old movies coming through in a big, big way right there, making that the reference. Honestly, it's absurd. Because that's what porn does. They do all these parody porn movies of big movies. But to do Casablanca, some of them make sense and would work. But like, how? How do you make Casablanca sexy, man?
00:44:15
Speaker
That led into their next problem in which it was discovered that Chris overwrote the tape for one of his classes and there's the Statue of Liberty in which their new plan is to drink until she gets hot.
00:44:32
Speaker
Uh, which is tremendous. And it cuts to the next morning, 37 beers down and Peter's hung over on the breakfast table as the family eats. And you get Chris introduced for the first time, congratulating his dad on his accomplishment. Slightly from boys to Chris. Seth Green was still trying to find the right, uh,
00:44:54
Speaker
the right kind of nuance to his performance. It's a much deeper version of Chris like deeper voice kind of version before Chris just becomes this yelly screamy guy with the voice and it gets a little bit more high pitched. But yeah, I always find that interesting of how not only are we are the characters trying to find their character and being introduced, but also the voice actors are like coming into what what where that voice is going to go.
00:45:19
Speaker
And Seth Green, you know, I found a little anecdote about what he was aiming for during his audition. He did an impression of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. And he said his main inspiration for Chris's voice came from envisioning how Buffalo Bill would sound if he was speaking through a public address system at a McDonald's.
00:45:43
Speaker
Well, what else can you expect from the guy who came up with a robot chicken? Seth Green at the time too. I mean, this was just the same year that he did idle hands with, uh, with Devin Sawa. I don't know if you ever saw that movie. I did not know it like.
00:46:05
Speaker
Stoner comedy turned to 11, where literally the concept of that film is that one of Devin Sawa's hands becomes possessed and gets him to kill. So eventually he has to cut off the hand and this disembodied hand runs around town killing people. Wow.
00:46:30
Speaker
Hey, I still I still enjoyed it. And while I find it a little bit creepy now that I believe she was 17 in the film for a 13 year old me to see 17, 18 year old Jessica Alba. You know, that was a good movie. It's a good movie for a young teen.
00:46:59
Speaker
uh on while peter's lying on the table we get a joke about the accountants in his head wondering if there's life beyond this and crunching numbers and it was at this point where i'm like dude we are you know how long into this episode we are under six minutes in like the jokes per second you can't even say jokes per minute the jokes per second
00:47:20
Speaker
is ridiculous for this first episode especially. It is just rapid fire to an extreme degree, but it works.
00:47:29
Speaker
It does work, especially because obviously no live studio audience or things like that. And in comedy, sometimes you have to spread jokes out more because of laughter and making sure everyone gets it and has a chance to die. And I think that's a fine line to walk. I think it's walked well in this one because a lot of them are not like
00:47:51
Speaker
You'd laugh for a few seconds. Some of them are chuckles. And that's good to have that sort of mix. And also, you're trying to sell the show. So you have to be like, here's all of my sense of humor. So yeah, it's just interesting how much the show has evolved. It's really cool to just observe that. You get Stewie's first failed plot at killing Lois as her chair leg mysteriously breaks at the table.
00:48:16
Speaker
And the audio for that, the little violin, crescendo, that's another very old school homage that Seth MacFarlane loves to do. That's just such a noir type thing, those strings doing the tension.
00:48:32
Speaker
By the way, I'll apologize for thinking about Lois here and just how good she is in that first episode. I will blame the autocorrect for Alex Borstein as opposed to Bornstein. As I've noticed a couple of the typos here, so I was just trying. You can imagine how difficult it was and how many times I had to pause to keep up making notes for this first episode. Jesus. Peter heads to work.
00:48:56
Speaker
in which one of his fellow employees at the Happy Go Lucky toy factory introduces the boss, Mr. Weed, to GI Jew.
00:49:09
Speaker
You've called these bagels? Could you get away with that today? No. No. And he couldn't get away with it as the show actually caught on. Like the more popular I get, the more they started axing Jew jokes. You think to the Star Wars Family Guy episodes, like the Jaws, which Mort Goldman was in that, they were originally called Jewas and they said, nope.
00:49:36
Speaker
Peter hungover and exhausted, is caught sleeping, but says he has a bug in his eye that he was trying to suffocate, which is still something. Again, just in this first episode, the amount of quotable stuff that's persisted just from episode one. He falls asleep and of course fails miserably at controlling the product line, which includes a knife, a toaster with the plug in water and forks sticking out.
00:50:04
Speaker
I just love how they get more and more messed up as late the line goes along too. It's just a classic Family Guy thing. You get introduced to Channel 5 news for the first time with Tom and Diane as kids are shown with the dangerous toys and Peter gets called Mr. Weed's office who fires him and Peter goes, but for how long?
00:50:30
Speaker
Just how quickly, like you said, they established what these characters are. Just how quickly you establish Peter as this dumb, drunk fuck up that somehow you still find endearing by the end of the episode. It is just the top notch writing that the show had right out of the gates for this first season, especially. Absolutely. Like it's.
00:50:58
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just I'm getting I'm getting chills thinking about it. And I watching it last night, it just it like kind of unlocked that love. And that reminded me why I fell in love with this show. Like some of the jokes I've heard so often, I didn't laugh at it, but I smile at every single one. And of others, I absolutely do still laugh at because they're so absurd or they're just classics like that. And sometimes it's the anticipation of knowing something's coming that makes it even funnier as well.
00:51:27
Speaker
Like this, wow, man, one of the next lines when he's talking to Brian. Chris, as Peter announces he's lost his job, says, way to go, dad, fight the machine, to which to respond after you know about the machine. That's also one of my favorites. Oh my god, like it's just, and again, like all of this is just rapid fire. It doesn't give you a chance.
00:51:54
Speaker
as Peter then has to debate how to break the news the lowest and he gets the devil on his shoulder basically saying women aren't smart like us just lie to her he looks to the angel who's not there because the angel is stuck in traffic just again the absurdity um you know
00:52:24
Speaker
Oh my god. Don't tell your mom because she gets worried. She's saying things like, I told you so and stop doing that. I'm asleep. That is just Jesus like. Lois walks into the room with dinner.
00:52:47
Speaker
And Peter tries not to spill the beans while also saying, can you please pass the fired by Hess for negligence? Speaking of which, what the hell is she serving for dinner? I was thinking about this. If you look at it, it looks like Ritz crackers in peanut butter. Just animated food is always hit and miss. And it legit looks like Ritz crackers in peanut butter that she's scooping on everyone's plate. I will say, though. That's something about eggplant, too.
00:53:16
Speaker
Oh, peanut peanut butter on Ritz crackers. Oh, it's fantastic. Eight year snack. Oh, yeah. Easily. I also really like cream cheese on Ritz crackers. That's like chive and onion cream cheese. Well, speaking of food, Stewie nearly kills Lois by shooting her with a ray gun out of his tuna fish sandwich.
Exploration of Humor and Themes
00:53:41
Speaker
It's tuna fish and nothing else.
00:53:47
Speaker
We get Peter trying out other jobs, including him being kaka for cuckoo puffs and being the sneeze guard at the salad bar, which is just another one. I legitimately, I'm not even like, I can't look at a salad bar without thinking, take it outside. And it's all from the first episode. That's what blows my mind. Yep.
00:54:12
Speaker
You get Peter not getting an award at an award show, Peter at Tiananmen Square. And that is a reference to the sound of music, the Von Trapp family singer. So again, borderline joke, but also Seth loves his old movies and musicals. Peter eventually settles on hiding underneath the lampshade while Lois watches TV in the living room during the day.
00:54:37
Speaker
to cover for the fact that he's not at work. Yet another scene where, when he talks to Brian, Brian is actively sitting like a dog. And they stopped doing that after a while, but it was one of the weirdest things to see. Animated humanoid dog sitting like a dog. Stewie recovers his gun, and we get the first ever victory is mine.
00:55:08
Speaker
Which in terms of a catchphrase, I mean, obviously eventually he becomes a catchphrase machine, produce and so much else. But again, for him to be locked into the, I am going to kill my mom, I'm an evil genius thing is perfect.
00:55:27
Speaker
Peter tries to break the news to Lois and lies and instead says that she's getting fat. Which leads to Brian treating him like a dog and smack him over the face with a newspaper when he tells no, no.
00:55:44
Speaker
I think that was my favorite line, but I forget about this one as Lois goes on to him being like, why do my Jane Fonda tapes three times a week? And he's like, Jesus, I thought you people were supposed to be jolly. The Angel again.
00:56:02
Speaker
shows up, or the angel finally shows up for Peter on his shoulder, only for the angel to have his own devil show up, but to show that the angel's angel is now stuck in traffic, which again, beating a dead horse in terms of the joke. God, you get Brian hitting Peter on the nose with the paper for what he said the lowest, but then Brian drops a line that finally, after all of this, gets you to the kind of crux of the episode.
00:56:31
Speaker
Which, I mean, I guess you could say is Peter getting fired, but okay, what's he gonna do about it? Brian drops the line, we'll think of your family's welfare. Which leads Peter to go to the welfare office. Completely misinterpret what is said. Where he's asked if he has any medical conditions and he cites that he didn't have gas until he was 30.
00:56:55
Speaker
which is another joke and cut away from the life of Larry, which again, plenty of them, as I mentioned, the Philadelphia deal, the communion deal as well. The end result is that the welfare office has a typo in terms of the amount of money that they are given, and it essentially leads to the Griffins being rich. Now, yeah. And this is weirdly like, yeah, it's like,
00:57:22
Speaker
the kind of main plot point where even more craziness can ensue. And that's like, I don't know how they did it. Squeeze this many jokes into this show, but it's just.
00:57:34
Speaker
Yeah, now that we're actually listing them all and talking about it, it actually seems ridiculous. Watching it, it's like, oh, yeah, this is a lot. But here we are. Holy crap. Every five seconds, there is a freaking great joke. And it was one of those things when I was putting together a run sheet for this episode in terms of how are we going to talk about this episode, where when I first started, I'm like, oh, OK, that's a notable joke. Oh, that's a notable joke, too.
00:58:01
Speaker
And it just kept going to where I'm like, well, instead of skipping over a lot of this stuff, like we didn't want to approach this from the standpoint of we're just repeating the jokes. But I feel like it provides that emphasis on just what the pacing is like for the pilot because it is
00:58:18
Speaker
outrageous and we're not even done. Not even close. We still got some things to talk about here. Again, you get Stewie with another attempt on Lois's life as he misses with a volley of arrows at the kitchen table.
00:58:35
Speaker
Why don't you put in hell? And then no dessert for you, young man, establishing kind of that they don't quite understand what Stewie's saying, but they understand the mood in which he's saying it with, which that was I remember no one like what the hell can. Why don't they hear what he's saying? They hear him, but they don't hear him. And I think ambiguity is a great thing to have in a cartoon comedy show. We get Bill Clinton's first ever cut away.
00:59:07
Speaker
everything that they packed into this episode, man. It's insane.
00:59:14
Speaker
Brian and Peter are talking about what to do about welfare, as Brian pees on a hydrant like he's at a urinal. And more kind of character development of what Brian is, this intellectual who definitely thinks highly of himself and is very nihilistic. This is why I don't vote. Such a nihilist standpoint, of course, which is going to lead to a lot more character development for Brian down the road, including a bumper sticker he has that I can't wait to talk about.
00:59:44
Speaker
Peter uses his money to rent the statue of David? He just rented it. You bought the statue of David? No, I just rented it. Yeah, it's fine. I didn't buy it. I just rented it. The penis breaks off, however, as he throws it away, it crashes through Mr. Weed's window, who renames it, Eduardo. Again, a joke combined with character development of, okay, Mr. Weed is homosexual.
01:00:15
Speaker
Peter, to make Lois feel better, takes the family out to the most expensive meal they've ever had as he goes to the drive-thru and orders 6,000 chicken vajayas.
01:00:29
Speaker
This is another thing. Anytime I see the weird fajita, I think of this. I believe this was episode one. No, because some of these I went like almost a Mandela effect. Like they couldn't have all been from the same episode. All these things that I remember, like the Tom Hanks one I didn't think was in this.
01:00:46
Speaker
I thought it was a couple of later. The fajitas one, I remember because it's, you know, it's because of the biggest meal they've ever had. And it's absurd. I remember saying that I got in trouble actually in middle school once for saying that because I thought I was actually saying vaginas. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm saying it's a joke from a show that I go to the office. But yeah, 6,000 chicken for Janice. I beg your pardon. And Brian, would they sausage biscuits? Yes, sausages, biscuit please.
01:01:15
Speaker
Oh my God. Peter employs Jerry Seinfeld as a gesture as he goes on a rant about New England, how it's not so new.
01:01:27
Speaker
nails the kind of the character voice, not like to a T. It's obviously not impersonation, but he totally nails like the spirit and the emphasis of Jerry Seinfeld, very apt to, because I believe Seinfeld at that point was, well, Jerry quit. Everyone, he quit. He wasn't canceled. I can't remember how anal he was about that.
01:01:52
Speaker
Meg finally gets her lip injections while Chris gets implants as he then walks across the screen, squeezing the implants in his hands. I was very surprised they made a joke about a teenage boy getting implants in the first episode, but they didn't hold back. Who was held back, though, was the Black Knight as Peter installed a moat in the front yard.
01:02:19
Speaker
Yeah, so fucking stupid, which is it's such a good setup with the, you know, saying that we wouldn't lowest is talking to the male lady about being rich is there's so many of these kind of jokes, right? It's just that quick turnaround, you know, with the congratulations on all your success. Here's your welfare check like that.
01:02:38
Speaker
This is just, it's the birth of everything that Family Guy humor is. And all in one episode, which I don't remember it being, but now that we're talking about it, watching it, thinking about it, it is incredible how many notes of what Family Guy is were hit in this pilot episode. Obviously not everything as the show evolved and characters evolved, but you see it all. This is the soul of what Family Guy is, is you can find it in this pilot episode.
01:03:07
Speaker
Another joke that I still repeat to this day, as Peter mentions how all the gifts were for the family, except for the jukebox in the bathroom. That was a gift for Peter. I'll still quote that, like, that was a gift for me. Just tremendous. Peter mentions how great their life is. They now have the ability to buy their kids out of trouble, just like the Kennedys, which
01:03:36
Speaker
Oh, like, dude, every single hot button and controversial issue that you can hit Seth MacFarlane is just like, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Fuck it. Go all out. You can tell he was just in the state of this is a chance and I'm going to throw everything, literally everything at it. Show them who I am. And I think and what the show is. And I think that's that's part of it. Like the pilot episode is so much of what Seth MacFarlane is and family guy found success because of that.
01:04:06
Speaker
Brian's talking to Peter about Lois and how mad she is over this. And Brian drops the line, who would have thought welfare fraud would be one of Lois's buttons, which- Dry, sarcastic. God, I love Brian so much, man. That one had me laughing for a bit, too. That was a fun one. And it leads to the idea of Peter giving away all of the money.
01:04:35
Speaker
at Super Bowl 33 from a blimp, in which they're in the air getting ready to throw money out, and Brian drops another line, you can't drive a car, but you can drive a blimp. And Peter says, America's great, isn't it? Except for the South. I love how much the South catches straits. I mean, deservedly so, but just anytime they get so many straits.
01:05:03
Speaker
who will get to the General Lee episode eventually. This leads to another one. I knew this was episode one, but Jesus, in terms of quotable things to this day, John Madden. He's quotable to begin with, but when you put him in cartoon form and make jokes with him, holy crap. Literally everything he says,
01:05:31
Speaker
every single line that John Madden, animated John Madden says is referenceable.
01:05:39
Speaker
And I have referenced every single one of them multiple times. Yeah. So, you know, and talking about, again, like our our presence in the sports video game space on YouTube and more so for me on the Twitch side of things, every year we'll play a good amount of Madden. And if I'm playing Madden odds are you're in the chat at every time. It's like, who's ready for another game of football?
01:06:06
Speaker
And then, of course, you have a later line, not in this episode, talking about Brett Favre's wedding. Yes. Yeah. Wow. Another thing. Anytime I hear Brett Favre's name. Oh, my God.
01:06:20
Speaker
As John Madden is furious that Peter is ruining a great game of football, he has Fox security shoot Peter and Brian down in the blimp. Do you remember when Fox's tagline was just one Fox? I think it was so short lived that I think some people will watch it and be like, what the hell? I mean, just one Fox, just one gun. Yeah, that used to be like it was so short lived, but Fox was like,
01:06:50
Speaker
That was like their slogan for a minute. Yeah, I had to look that up because I'm just like, OK, what's the joke that I'm missing there? That was the one that essentially didn't land for me that I didn't get the reference, which is impressive given how long ago this was. Yeah, 20 plus years ago. And so many of the jokes are still golden and timely. Wow.
01:07:17
Speaker
Peter and Brian end up going to jail, where, uh, Peter gets out of the shower and talks about how he's getting laughed at, uh, for dropping the soap as a couple of other people walk by. Hey, that's the guy who couldn't hold onto the soap. Um, because of course they made a joke about that as Peter then jumps onto the top bunk and it collapses onto Brian. Physical comedy too. Why the heck not? Like, God damn. Oh.
01:07:47
Speaker
Stewie finally gets his original mind control device back after threatening Lois with a box of grenades. Ridiculous.
01:08:01
Speaker
As Lois and the kids head to the courthouse, I don't know if you caught this, a very not looking Glenn Flagmire is behind them. Completely differently animated than he was in the party scene and obviously later on where it becomes very skinnier and his face too gets a little, it's still big, but yeah, in that courtroom scene, it is like a fucking balloon head of Wagmire. Dude, he looks like, he looks like Rocky, not the boxer, but.
01:08:30
Speaker
you have to specify that because then later on family guy makes fun of both of those things the boxer and the mutant sorry it's powerful movie it is it's it's powerful film um we get the different strokes
01:08:52
Speaker
Oh my God. We get the different strokes joke about the bike shop. Just come on. Fucking hell. Religion, Holocaust, more Jew jokes and then pedophilia. Yeah. So the line of him saying I need you to scream real loud into my ass is funny enough. But what gets me
01:09:22
Speaker
is the judge saying, so did you learn your lesson at Peter's saying, yes, stay away from that bike shop, broke me again.
01:09:32
Speaker
It absolutely broke me again. It's just such an idiot. I love it. At the end of the day, Peter gets 24 months in prison to which everyone reacts. Oh, no. Oh, no. And we get the first ever Kool-Aid man joke as he busts through the wall of the courtroom in episode one. I didn't remember this being an episode one. I can't believe it.
01:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's absolutely insane. Lois appeals and also gets sentenced to two years in jail for some reason. American justice system at work. To which Stewie finally saves the day with his ray gun, which is revealed to be a mind control device as he gets the judge to reverse course and get Peter his job back as well.
01:10:31
Speaker
I like how the first iteration of it is how the judge decides, oh, is that your boy? I can't separate a dad from his son like that. It's almost like, oh, you don't know. It's like, oh, wait, is that really a mind control device? It's unclear. And then of course, the second one, he's like, can I get my job back? No. And then he does it. And he's like, yes. And it's like, oh my god, yeah, it is. Those are little things that really I noticed this time around where it's like, that's actually extremely brilliant.
01:11:02
Speaker
The family's back at home, watching bloopers, as, uh, an episode of Joni loves Chachi is interrupted by a bear attack. Again, that's not even like a joke. It's just absurd. And that's what makes it frigging funny. And Peter ends the episode by claiming he'll go after a minority scholarship as he puts on an afro.
01:11:32
Speaker
When that's declined, he says he'll go after a sexual harassment suit as he puts on a blonde wig and rips his shirt open. The family turns that idea down.
Impact of the Pilot Episode
01:11:42
Speaker
And then he says, disability claim for money hits himself in the face with a bat, knocking himself out and the credits roll. Our final section I have here is called final thoughts.
01:12:00
Speaker
How the hell do you sum up this episode? Because all of the jokes that are still a part of our humor to this day, they did such a great job of establishing the comedy of the show, the absurdity of the show, the characters. I feel like there are some shows you can look back on and watch the pilot of the first episode and be like, okay, I can see how they get to where they're going.
01:12:30
Speaker
This episode of Family Guy, the very first one, they're right there. There's not the journey necessarily to get to where the show became. There were just the tweaks here and there to perfect what was already there.
01:12:47
Speaker
One of the biggest examples of that I have is the pilot episode of The Office. Now, obviously it's different because they were kind of almost going very, very closer, almost in line with the British version of it, so you have less freedom there. But that's one where you watch the pilot episode, you're like, eh. And then it kind of starts to take off in the second episode, and then it's like the second season where it really comes into its own. But yeah, for Family Guy,
01:13:13
Speaker
It's not a perfect episode or a perfect creation by any means, but it's perfect in the sense of family guy in doing what it's supposed to do. And that is why it's perfect, because as you said, it introduces every single character, gives kind of a baseline for where they're going to go, at least the major characters. Other ones take a little longer to flesh out, particularly Quagmire, when they figure out what he's going to be in a future episode, which I can't wait for. Yeah, and it showcases
01:13:43
Speaker
Uh, everything of Seth McFarland's talents, obviously his art artistic ability, his writing ability, his voice acting style, his humor style.
01:13:53
Speaker
You know, Family Guy is Seth MacFarlane and Seth MacFarlane is Family Guy. And that's the way it's just always going to be, I think, for him. And maybe some days it feels like a curse to him. And he's not even a big part of the show anymore. I don't even think he really writes or anything like that. It just still does voices. But I mean, it's him. It's his. And this first episode was goddamn.
01:14:16
Speaker
I was thinking about that, too, in terms of how to recap the show. And it's like, all right, do you give it a thumbs up is like, yes, episode holds up thumbs in the middle like it was OK or not a great one. I mean, this is this is two thumbs up, like in terms of setting setting the tone for what a family guy episode is. Yeah. I mean, I don't think you could have had a better debut episode to set the tone. No, especially considering how it got debuted, which I actually was not aware of till right now. That's insane.
01:14:48
Speaker
So with that, any other kind of thoughts? Because I think this episode, right, will probably end up being one of our longer ones. Just based on the history of the show and everything, I think some episodes will generate more discussion than others. But is there anything else that we didn't touch up on that you had? No, I have something, but I'm going to save it for next episode. Because it belongs at the beginning of an episode.
01:15:15
Speaker
Well, we have that next episode, the previously mentioned, I never met the dead man, which would debut, again, this was January 31st for the pilot, April 11th, 1999, the official premiere of Family Guy, and we will cover that in our next episode. But if you made it to the end of this one, for our debut here of the Family Guys, well, we thank you very, very much for that.
Closing Remarks and Engagement
01:15:44
Speaker
Um, you can follow sin on the bird app that we continue to call Twitter at, uh, sin FTW prod. That is C Y N F D W P R O D. And you can find me at Tookie 24 T O U G I E 24, uh, sin. This was, this was a lot of fun. Um, and hopefully, you know, we'll, we'll have our own evolution throughout this show, but hopefully we set the stage, uh, for what this is, which.
01:16:13
Speaker
It was kind of what we advertised at the start. It's just two friends talking about kind of their history with the show that has done so much to craft their humor. You know, if we set the stage for this show and what this podcast could be 25 percent as good as the pilot episode did for Famiguai, we are in fantastic shape. And we, of course, thank you all for listening. It's a great way to stay in shape.
01:16:41
Speaker
We'll see you next time, everybody. Thank you again for watching and listening.