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to have been Pamela’s dream at the notorious beginning of that program’s
1986–1987 season. Indeed, in the Family Guy episode, Pamela gets up and
goes to the bathroom, where she finds Bobby (Patrick Duffy) showering,
as in the Dallas episode. She falls into his arms, weeping that she has just
dreamed the weirdest episode of Family Guy ever. “What’s Family Guy?” he
responds. They both look into the camera, looking stunned and puzzled.
This irreverent treatment of the Y2K scare (only days before many truly
felt that disaster was looming) is typical of the brash satire of Family Guy, just
as the send-up of the genre of postapocalyptic science fiction is typical of
its parodic treatment of popular culture. Science fiction is, in fact, a favorite
target, as when Peter seizes control (from Lois) of the Quahog Players and,
seeking bigger box office, turns their production of The King and I into a sci-
ence fiction action thriller in “The King is Dead” (March 28, 2000). Peter is a
devoted fan of Star Trek, which shows up in several episodes. In “I Never Met
the Dead Man” (April 11, 1999), Peter and William Shatner become friends,
but then Meg, practicing to get her driver’s license, accidentally runs over
and kills Shatner. Stewie’s inventions also add an element of science fiction
to Family Guy. In “Emission Impossible” (November 8, 2001), he builds a
high-tech ship and then shrinks it (and himself) down to microscopic size
so that he can go inside Peter’s body and try to destroy all his sperm before
he can impregnate Lois with still another baby. This motif clearly recalls the
Family Guys from King of the Hill to American Dad
93
classic science fiction film Fantastic Voyage (1966), though the voice of the
talking computer that helps control Stewie’s ship is supplied by none other
than Majel Barrett (widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry), who had
played Nurse Chapel on the original Star Trek series and who supplied the
voices of the ship’s computers in several of the Star Trek films and in the Deep
Space Nine and Voyager television series.
Family Guy treats more sensitive issues, such as politics and religion, just
as irreverently as it treats popular culture, though the various categories
tend to run together in the series. Many episodes, though, are specifically
devoted to politics or religion. Like the Simpsons and the Hills, the Griffins
sometimes get involved in local politics, as when Peter and Lois both run for
election to the Quahog school board in “Running Mates” (April 11, 2000).
Peter wins, but only by employing dirty tactics, including accusing Lois of
being a slut and displaying on television a naughty picture he once took
of her. His preposterous policies while on the board (such as replacing
hall monitors with killer robots based on the ED-209 “bad” robot from the
Robocop film) are then cut short when he is driven from the board after it
is discovered that he has supplied Chris with girlie magazines, which Chris
has subsequently circulated around his school.
“Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington” is Family Guy’s contribution to the
genre of cartoon episodes based on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, though it
of course goes well beyond the episodes of The Simpsons based on this film.
Here, Peter is sent to Washington to lobby for the tobacco industry (because
he’s an idiot, like everyone in Washington) after the El Dorado Cigarette
Company takes over Happy-Go-Lucky Toys and then promptly starts to pro-
duce toys—such as “Baby Smokes-a-Lot”—designed to encourage children
to smoke. In Washington, Peter takes a group of politicians (including both
Al Gore and George W. Bush) to a strip club, where a senator accidentally
kills a stripper. Peter then wins the politicians over to the side of the tobacco
industry by helping to cover up the death. But when Peter’s success in pro-
moting tobacco causes even little Stewie to start smoking, Peter changes
course and speaks out against cigarettes in Congress, convincing that
august body to come down hard on El Dorado Cigarettes, fining them into
bankruptcy. The episode then ends with a mock public service announce-
ment in which Peter makes a statement, not against smoking, but against
killing strippers.
In “Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington,” the executives of the tobacco com-
pany are so evil that they are shown using live puppies as targets to practice
skeet shooting. Most network programming might have shied away from
showing such a scene, but Family Guy revels in such images. The show
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Drawn to Television
features considerable violence against animals and at least one major
instance of bestiality—when Lois’s father impregnates his beloved racing dog
in “Screwed the Pooch” (November 29, 2001). This outrageous motif actually
echoes an earlier scene from South Park; Family Guy, in fact, often resembles
South Park in the way that virtually no topic is considered out of bounds by
the program, which is peppered with jokes about Hitler and the Holocaust,
violent death, rape, child abuse, drug use, and other topics generally avoided
by network television comedies. Again echoing South Park, it is the outra-
geously irreverent treatment of religion (in which the program seems to go
out of its way to be offensive) that is probably the most controversial aspect
of Family Guy. Jesus and God both frequently appear as characters in the
series, as when God performs various stunts (such as pouring beer with no
hands) in order to try to pick up chicks, or when Jesus appears as a cheap
parlor magician. Even Christmas isn’t sacred, as in “A Very Special Family [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]