"Holy crip! He's a crapple!" (Family Guy - Season 1 (DVD))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Family Guy - Season 1 (DVD)
Date:	23/02/04 (1252 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Extremely funny, Extremely funny, Did I say that it was extremely funny?

Disadvantages: Picture quality can be a bit off, Nothing else

Family Guy first appeared in my world years ago when it was first aired in the U.K. on Sky One, but if memory serves me right, it only lasted a few episodes before it disappeared for a while. However, those few episodes were enough for me to become hooked.

Jesus: "For my next miracle, I'm going to turn this water into funk!"

It's hard for me to offer up similar alternatives or even a one-line description of Family Guy, and the closest I can come up with is that it's a more risqué and surreal version of The Simpsons.

Stewie: "Damn you vile woman, you've impeded my work since the day I escaped your vile womb."

Family Guy follows the day to day life of the Griffin family from Quahog, Rhode Island. Peter is the supposed head of the household, although it's usually his stupidity or misfortune that an episode will concentrate on. Lois is his loving and long-suffering wife who will bring an element of common sense to the proceedings while balancing the complex issues of her children. Chris is a 13 year old boy with a desire for drawing and sitting in front of the telly with his dad. Meg is a sixteen year old girl whose main crisis in life is her lack of acceptance into some sort of "in crowd" of her peers, and this is her driving force throughout each episode when she's not being embarrassed by Peter's antics. Stewie is the youngest member of the Griffin family at just one year old, but he's already got ideas of world domination and in the first series he's already busy creating time machines and weather controlling devices to further his conquest. Last, and by no means least, is Brian. Brian is a dog. Not any ordinary dog though because he can talk and appears to be the only family member who can actually understand Stewie properly. He's also a voice of reason and can usually be seen with a martini or two in his paws.

Peter: "Oh, you people can kiss the
fattest part of my ass."

For programmes such as Family Guy, it can be the characters as much as the writing/plot which makes or breaks a series. Like The Simpsons main two characters of Homer and Bart, it's Peter and Stewie Griffin who stand out as the most interesting characters. In fact, Stewie's accent (think of a cross between Vincent Price and an archetypal English gentleman and you'll be there) coupled with his world domination schemes make him the outstanding character in Series One.

It's rare for me to actually laugh out loud at a television programme, but in Family Guy there is at least one good laugh per episode, usually at one of Peter's flashbacks. I've tried describing these before to other people, but they really don't translate well outside of the programme itself. Throughout each episode, which generally follows the usual kinds of storylines of The Simpsons/Futurama or any recent American sitcom where there's a lesson to be learned and usually means that Peter has gotten himself into trouble. This will inevitably be solved along the line although not without a few surreal moments like the appearance of a cult leader trying to ascend to the next level or any one of Stewie's attempts to take over the world. The fact the show is animated gives the writers a licence to do almost anything they choose.

Watch one episode though, and you'll want to watch them all.

Over the course of the entire first series the quality of each episode remains high, and only sometimes will there be jokes you'll not get (usually references to American television programmes). Episodes do bear up to repeat viewing, and much like The Simpsons, you can dip in and out of them when you please.

Chris: "Cheesy Charlie's is great. They have a game where you put in a dollar and you get four quarters. I win every time."

As far as the voice acting goes, it's generally t
op notch as you would expect with most top class animated programmes. Most of the names might be unfamiliar to you although Seth Green (Austin Powers films, Idle Hands, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Chris with Lacey Chabert (Party of Five, Lost in Space, Yet Another Teen Movie) as Meg are the two names which might be recognisable.

Peter: "Listen Lois, I know you're a feminist and I think that's adorable, but this is grown-up time and I'm the man."

As far as extras are concerned, well, you'll get none. There are subtitles, of course, but this isn't even really counted as an 'extra' these days, is it? The picture quality is only average, especially for a cartoon, although it's still watchable but the sound is crisp and clear. For your money, you'll get two DVDs which cover the 14 episodes of Series 1, and with this currently going for less than £20 from the likes of Amazon, there's really no reason not to buy it.

Family Guy has a 15 certification for the UK.

Summary: