Seth McFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy

Did Seth McFarlane set out make a collection of comedy that deserves it’s own place in the comedy world or did he simply just make a DVD full of Family Guy out-takes of the times Peter Griffin says, “Yeah, like that one time those cats were having that staff meeting?” I am going to have to say the latter unfortunately. While there are funny moments and some of the uncensored depraved gutter filth of Seth McFarlane (that for some reason some people think is funny), it just seems like his best stuff is on Family Guy and American Dad. Or perhaps, the quick skits were influenced by another Seth with another animated show Robot Chicken.

I don’t believe being extremely offensive is funny but to some extent I could argue its “necessity.” But what makes Family Guy hysterical is the bits that are written with a big leap of the imagination. Think about the early episode where the FG characters were in the courtroom saying one after the other, “Oh no!” then the Kool-Aid Man burst in out of nowhere completely unsuspected and says his iconical, “Oh yeah!” In the early days these kinds of jokes were the main source of leverage for the comedy of the show. Over time, and now catalyzed by Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, we are seeing the waning of the clever comedy being traded for a starved human eating the leg of Matthew McConaughey and Dick Cheney violently beating a woman he is having sex with. Don’t get me wrong, a dick joke can be good but only if there is that leap of the imagination. Offensiveness by itself is only shocking and shocking is cheap. A proper leap of the imagination takes work and as you become successful the need to work becomes less and less. Perhaps that is why we are seeing the decline of one who was once a comedic genius.

The good points of the DVD are “Cat Staff Meeting,” “Things You Never Hear” and “Die, Sweet Roadrunner, Die” which is premised upon what would happen to Wile E. Coyote after he had captured his white whale. Unfortunately, the actual funny parts are buried beneath irrelevant crudeness.

No related posts.

Tagged as: Seth McFarlane

blog comments powered by Disqus