The Shrine

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Well, it's come to this. Simpsons is copying the Family Guy. Anyone else have any Signs of the Apocalypse to share?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Hey, and why not? I consider Family Guy to be *gasp* funnier than The Simpsons. The first episode actually made me fall out of my chair...multiple times.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Family Guy is funny, but the show's got no real heart. In terms of actual meaningful television programs it belongs buried deep within the shadow of the Simpsons</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>It deserves better than that. "Holy crip he's a crapple!"</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I don't think it does! But that's beside the point. The Simpsons should NEVER have to stoop to ripping off the Family Guy. It just shouldn't be done.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Impact; text-align: left; '>PENIS!</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I agree, though I love Family Guy with a passion. The Simpsons will just always have that place at the top for me.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, this year's Halloween special wasnt that great. The stories hardly had anything to do with Halloween, which was disapointing.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Simpsons hasn't been funny in about 5 years</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I loved that. Family Guy has definitely taken rank up there as one of my favorite shows ever. Come on...it has a man vs chicken-man fight that lasts 6 minutes or so! :)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>A Disclaimer: I do think Family Guy is a funny show and I watch it every night on Adult Swim. But just being funny isn't going to make something a truly great show.

<b>1.) Musical Numbers:</b> This one is more a side note, but nobody really gives a shit about Broadway parodies. Especially when that's all your musical numbers have to offer. It might make me chuckle for a character to suddenly break into song, but that chuckle is hardly gonna last through the whole minute or so they waste on pointless singing.

<b>2.) Controversy:</b> I have no problem with controversy in television shows, as it were. In fact, I usually rather like it. The problem with the "controversy" in Family Guy though is the fact that it is completely vacuous and contrived. FG's writers never use controversy in order to actually <i>say</i> something - to them it's nothing more than a cheap, attention-grabbing tactic.

<b>3.) The Characters:</b> The FG staff seems to go to great lengths to make sure that the audience never actually be brought to <i>care</i> about any of the characters on the show. I don't really understand why they feel the need to do this. Granted a show can still be funny without characters you care about (and FG definitely is), but that shortcoming is always going to prevent it from becoming a truly great program - in my eyes at least.

(note: Brian and Lois - and to a small extent Chris - could be considered exceptions to this point, but all the other characters are essentially emotionally vapid)

<B>4.) Lessons:</b> I think the central problem with Family Guy - that is, the problem from which points 2 and 3 both stem - is that the FG staff is concerned primarily with making sure that no one ever "learn anything" from any of the episodes. They seem to be obsessed with avoiding becoming "preachy" and at the same time being self-reflexive about its lack of preachy-ness. Essentially, my problem is this: points 2 and 3 are characteristics of bad writing and bad television. Simply because they've chosen to do this on purpose and consequently wax self-reflexive about it doesn't do anything to change the fact that they are still characteristics of bad writing and bad television.

This is the same problem I share with the Scream movies and this new brand of "pop" post-modernism in general. You may be "cleverly" admitting to your audience that what you're doing is stupid, contrived, and pointless - but if what you're doing is stupid, contrived, and pointless, all the "cleverness" in the world isn't going to make it meaningful.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Five's a bit much. I'd say more like one or two. And it's still funny, it's just become pointless and cheap.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>I didn't see it last night. What was copied?</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>The thing with the Simpsons is that yes it's gone down hill recently but they still throw in a gem every now and then.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>My issue wasn't so much the fact that the first one was a blatant Family Guy rip. It's that none of them ENDED PROPERLY. Slightly amusing gag, commercial break, WTF?</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>"Our relationship can't be measured in nipples and dimes. I mean nickles and boobs. Money."</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I understand what you mean. This is why The Simpsons is my favorite show of all time and will never be matched. But, I get a relaxed sense of pure enjoyment from Family Guy because it's so easy to watch, with no real "point", and I laugh really freaking hard when I watch it.

Thusly, I am right, you are dumb. :) Just kidding.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I'm the Don Wang of television shows : )</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Both last night's Simpsons episode and the Family Guy episode in question are parodies of a Piers Anthony book titled <i>On a Pale Horse</i> about a man who kills Death and is then forced, against his will, to become the next incarnation of Death himself (and subsequently placed in a situation where he must kill his beloved wife).

So, I guess it's not the Apocalypse after all...you can all remove your safety helmets.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Shit. What's Wall-Mart's return policy?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Except that I get the impression that you actually enjoy your hobby.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>That's how a lot of the regular episodes have been ending for the past couple of seasons. I'm not so pissed off as I am disappointed.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I'm sure he enjoys gaming...but it's more like the way a thermostat enjoys heating a house, or an electric can opener enjoys opening your beans. It's just his function at this point : )</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, but not that much, at least 3 years. I liked it when it was a parody of society, not just a parody of itself</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>True. I chuckle once or twice an ep now, unlike the past when the entire episode was great</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Impact; text-align: left; '>Family Guy is good shit! Don't return it!</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Ahem. I was talking about the helmet.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>the Homer becoming death skit.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>I said gems. not chuckle once or twice. I mean 2 or three episodes a season now are still fantastic while it used to be every one. Not as many as in the past but they still have a GEM now and then....like a couple years ago with the focusin episode, or the medical weed episode</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Impact; text-align: left; '>Oh, well as long as you haven't used it as a spitoon, to carry deer blood, urine, semen, or any other bodily fluid and/or washed it, should be fine.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I watch about 2 a year now with my cousins and I barely chuckle. Maybe I just catch the bad ones, but it just doesn't get me to want to watch it anymore</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>See, there was this party...</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Impact; text-align: left; '>Eh....I'd keep it, maybe you could give it to an ex to catch her douche or something, or use it as a bird bath.</div>