Animal Midwife

[vovat]

I might as well get my Sunday night cartoon reviews out of the way. Honestly, while I'm always glad to see new episodes, last night's showings weren't that great. The idea behind the Simpsons episode, that Abe's ramblings worked as newspaper columns, wasn't a bad one, but it seems like the writers really didn't know what to do with it. Turning it into a murder plot with ridiculously over-the-top action scenes is pretty much a cliché on the show by this point. Family Guy appeared to want things both ways, making a joke about how they were doing an amnesia story, yet playing that story pretty straight. Really, I didn't see any particular innovations that they took with the idea, and even the cutaway gags were fairly weak. Okay, the Robin Williams bit was funny, but that's about it. American Dad was passable, and doing something else with the brain-switching technology that we know the CIA has within the context of the show was a good idea, but I'm not sure about Stan molesting the horse. At this point, such things are no longer shocking enough to be funny out of sheer wrongness (especially on Seth MacFarlane shows), yet that was pretty much the extent of the joke. Eh, whatever.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

I thought the Simpsons ep was really weak -- I liked the Larry The Lamb subplot (particularly Nelson's obsession), but, well, the Abe/Homer story didn't work. Like, I felt kinda weird that the story seemed to be about how awesome Abe is and how Homer has taken him for granted and should be better to his dad and whatnot when, um, it's pretty much established that Abe is a HORRIBLE father, and the gist of this ep seemed to be that Homer's a terrible son. Which... yeah. (I think this is why "Kidney Trouble" didn't work either.) I think Abe's a hard character to write for, though -- in large doses (i.e. his own episodes) his complaininess can either be absolutely hilarious, or really grating. Flying Hellfish -- AWESOME. This one... egh.

Cleveland Show continues to just exist. Yay?

I actually liked the Family Guy ep. I thought it was one of the better of the season. The Family Feud bits were pretty dang good. Thought it was odd they went with Richard Dawson since he's been all hermitman forever. Admittedly, aside from Ray Combs, he's probably the only IDENTIFIABLE host of the Feud, so... yeah. (I mean, sure, people know Louie Anderson -- whom I'd completely forgotten had hosted, Al from Home Improvement and J Peterman from Seinfeld, but, um, people only really know them as the fat guy with an abusive dad, uh, Al from Home Improvement and J Peterman from Seinfeld respectively. And Ray Combs hanged himself in a closet, so, yeah.)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Like, I felt kinda weird that the story seemed to be about how awesome Abe is and how Homer has taken him for granted and should be better to his dad and whatnot when, um, it's pretty much established that Abe is a HORRIBLE father, and the gist of this ep seemed to be that Homer's a terrible son.

Well, in "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy," they admitted that they're BOTH screw-ups.

While I liked the idea of Abe getting famous, I think they should have done more to explain how his rambling, nonsensical stories that typically bore everybody would somehow become popular.

I also liked the Family Feud bit, and I think there's a general tendency for people to always associate game shows with the hosts THEY grew up watching. So maybe Richard Dawson was on Family Guy for the same reason that the late Charley Weaver was on Springfield Squares in "Krusty Gets Kancelled."