Monday, September 24, 2007

Animation Domination Sunday

Might as well talk about FOX's Sunday animated show since I took the time to watch them last night.

The Simpsons: The same problems that have plagued this show last year and the few years before that, apparently still exist. The show has its moments, but overall, the episodes just seem uninspired. Last night's highlights included a revised opening which showed Bart skateboarding around Springfield amongst the aftermath of the events of the movie. Also, Stephen Colbert was a great guest voice, especially since he wasn't playing himself. Frankly, I wish he would have been more involved in the episode. The idea of Homer using a life coach was interesting but underdeveloped. Sadly, there was too much of a focus on some extraneous plot points and the result was a disjointed story.

Family Guy: I don't watch Family Guy on a regular basis, but I made a special effort to check out their homage to Star Wars last night and I'm glad I did. From a visually standpoint, the show was amazing as they recreated certain scenes exactly from the movie. They also did a nice job of making some funny observations about the film's story and characters, which surprised me considering the fact that I thought every possible joke about Star Wars had already been made. I also thought they did a good job of pairing characters from their universe with the ones from the film (Gotta love Meg being the monster in the garbage chute). I think what made this episode of Family Guy so great is that they had a specific, focused story to work with. Lately, Family Guy has just been this hodge podge of random jokes with no story to support them. Here they were given the plot and all they had to do was create the jokes around it. The end result was a very effective and funny episode.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Finally watched the Family Guy, and yes, the foundational plot helped the jokes stay funny. I haven't laughed out loud like that in a week or so, even considering that I watched a Bob Sagat stand-up DVD, which actually sucked. All he did was cuss. I don't recall ever hearing a joke. Erin and I switched it off half way because we were tired of him talking.