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[Jaspers]

One thing I've noticed is the animation has gotten really lazy. In nearly any given non-manatee joke scene, characters walk into frame, stand perfectly still except for their mouths and the occasional arm spasm.

[AudeSapere]

I think Justin's got a pretty good tack on the matter. When the series came back after the un-cancellation and the quality noticeably started to decline towards the end of the fourth season, I was kind of mad about it because the original three seasons are one of my favorite things on TV ever. After Fox was humbled and essentially begged MacFarlane to come back after the show ran rampant all over Adult Swim, it seems that MacFarlane knew he had them by the balls and simply got lazy with it because he didn't have anything to prove anymore. It became really easy to just put in pointless shock humor and recycle random jokes and hey, who cares if the characters are regressing into unlikeability? What're they gonna do, cancel us again? But they seem to be at least mildly aware of the backlash against the show in recent years, so maybe it's improving; Quagmire totally dressing down Brian seems like less of their typical navel-gazing meta-humor and more of a "okay, yeah, we admit that Brian's been a preachy douche lately, we get it" move. It's nothing I actively try to watch anymore, but there are worse things to kick back and watch with a tall frosty one.

Fun fact: I've met Seth MacFarlane. Kind of a dick.

Another fun fact: Seth MacFarlane by all accounts should've died in the 9/11 attacks.

[DGMacphee]

One thing I've noticed is the animation has gotten really lazy. In nearly any given non-manatee joke scene, characters walk into frame, stand perfectly still except for their mouths and the occasional arm spasm.

I don't think it's fair to blame MacFarlance or Family Guy for this, because I've noticed the same thing on The Simpsons as well. The production on the Simpsons is handled by Film Roman Productions, who also handle the production on Family Guy. From what I've read, doing hand-drawn cel animation, especially stuff that's fluid and life-like, is very expensive. And it wouldn't surprise me if Film Roman's budget is less now than it had been ten years ago, possibly due to the waning popularity of both shows. I've also read they've switched to cheaper animation studios over the existence of both shows.

Another fun fact: Seth MacFarlane by all accounts should've died in the 9/11 attacks.

At first I thought you were making very a tastless, hyperbolic comment until I realised you meant that Seth McFarlane was supposed to be on one of those planes but missed his flight.

[AudeSapere]

Yeah, I didn't mean 'should've' in a normative sense, but rather that if not for a series of sitcom-like miscues, he would've been on one of the planes that crashed into the towers.

It's been about five years since I heard him talk, but the story is essentially what's detailed on Wikipedia with a few different details. Basically Family Guy had been axed once but brought back for a third season after a big write-in campaign, but Fox still wasn't keen on the show and kept flipping around its time slots and just generally not giving a fuck about it. With the last episode prospectively to air in February 2002, the writing was pretty much on the wall. With most of the season having been completed, MacFarlane gets a call in September 2001, asking him to fly to Los Angeles to discuss Family Guy. Well, you know what that means. So MacFarlane, who knows that he's only getting summoned to Fox Studios so they can tell him in person that Family Guy is on the chopping block, goes out and gets shitfaced like the good Irishman he is. (Can you tell where Brian Griffin came from? Same voice, same drinking tendencies, both are single but looking, etc.) Needless to say, he wakes up with the mother of hangovers and misses his flight; Wiki also attributes this to having the wrong boarding time due to an airline error. That flight would've been the Boston-L.A. flight that hit the second Twin Tower, I believe.

He's probably not as much as a prick as he comes off, I honestly think a lot of it is his voice. It sort of has an obnoxious "come here, children, listen to what the charismatic prophet has to say" vibe to it. You know how in recent seasons Brian will go off on a political rant that's obviously just the writers trying to make a topical point and you're like "gahhhh shut up, i get it, tell me a fuckin' joke"? He kind of talks like that all the time regardless of what he's saying. I bet if you just had a couple dudes sittin' around and having a beer and laughin' and tellin' lies, he'd come off as a lot more likable.

[A Link To The Matt]

Another fun fact: Seth MacFarlane by all accounts should've died in the 9/11 attacks.

Fun fact 3. MacFarlane looks and sounds exactly like an old friend from high school. When I first found out what he looked like, I had to call him to make sure he hadn't changed his name. He hasn't, but says he constantly gets requests from autographs.

[DGMacphee]

He's probably not as much as a prick as he comes off, I honestly think a lot of it is his voice. It sort of has an obnoxious "come here, children, listen to what the charismatic prophet has to say" vibe to it. You know how in recent seasons Brian will go off on a political rant that's obviously just the writers trying to make a topical point and you're like "gahhhh shut up, i get it, tell me a fuckin' joke"? He kind of talks like that all the time regardless of what he's saying. I bet if you just had a couple dudes sittin' around and having a beer and laughin' and tellin' lies, he'd come off as a lot more likable.

I've always found him quite personable and humble in interviews and speeches. Especially, his speech to Harvard Class Day. It was basically, "Here's some jokes. I'm not sure why you invited a guy who went to a Rhode Island tech college. Here's some more jokes. I wish I could have gone to Harvard because you guys are really smart. More jokes. Instead of droning on, I'll do the rest of my speech as characters from Family Guy."

[AudeSapere]

I think he might just have been a little irritable that day because this was a few months before season 4 was returning on Fox and he was trying to show us part of the episode (which would've been really cool), but somehow the technology screwed up so we only got to see the Passion of the Christ joke and the Bed, Bath and Beyond joke before the video wonked out. That may have had something to do with it.

The best part of his speech was during the Q&A when somebody asked if the line in the theme song was "all the things that make us laugh and cry" or "all the things that make us effin' cry". (A lot of the Adult Swim episodes say "effin' cry" on the closed-captioning, despite that version of the line making no sense in the context of the song.) MacFarlane just stared at the kid for a second, then deadpanned, "It's laugh and cry. What the hell is 'effin' cry'?"

[Frank Stallone]

Something to keep in mind when meeting someone famous is the fundamental attribution error wherein, basically, you extrapolate too much information about a person from a really small sample (i.e. meeting them once, in passing, for a few minutes or just seeing how messy their apartment is). Not to get preachy or anything but stfu all you guys. God forbid I got famous and someone met me one of the 341 days of the year I'm a total (complete) dick. There'll be Justin's a Dick blogs all over the internet. Rightfully so.

I still like the new episodes of family guy, to be honest. It's not as good as it used to be but who is am I right? Ha! I don't know if that makes me cool because I'm all "fuck what people think" or lame because I'm all "I say 'Hey Leeeeeee' " to just about everyone I meet.

The way I see it, it costs me nothing but 22 minutes (DVR wwwwwwwwhat) to watch an episode of Family Guy and if it makes me laugh a few times, cool. Plus that episode where they joke about Fox's in-episode promos is hilarious (Shovin' Buddies and Slowly Rotating Black Guy).

[Alex]

"This guy!" "No, this guy!"

I loved that. Family Guy entertains me. GOOD ENOUGH

[Just!n]

Something to keep in mind when meeting someone famous is the fundamental attribution error wherein, basically, you extrapolate too much information about a person from a really small sample (i.e. meeting them once, in passing, for a few minutes or just seeing how messy their apartment is). Not to get preachy or anything but stfu all you guys. God forbid I got famous and someone met me one of the 341 days of the year I'm a total (complete) dick. There'll be Justin's a Dick blogs all over the internet. Rightfully so.

to expand upon this, i try to avoid meeting famous people (famous, of course, being relative to my interests) on the grounds that while i've made a personal commitment to them and their creative output (whatever that may be) they have no connection to me beyond (what i hope) is a basic appreciation for a person who supports their endeavors. but even that puts me on the same playing field as Every Other Fan, and ultimately i feel like leaving them alone does them a much greater service than putting them through yet another polite, cursory interaction.

the only "famous" people i've ever really talked to were matt skiba from alkaline trio and miley cyrus' brother who's band opened at a show i went to, and both times i didn't initiate the conversation. i don't think it's dumb to want to meet people you admire, because i know a guy like b has a stronger, more invested respect for his heroes than i do and can articulate it to them more elegantly and succinctly than i ever could. i just don't see the merit in being a white noise fan, especially when too many people come away from celebrity interactions underwhelmed and unsatisfied.

[Patrick]

The problem with "well you don't know him!!!" is that we all do kind of know him, both from his hundreds of interviews and his three recurring television shows. The way a person enunciates or writes or does really anything gives insight into the character within. No, Seth MacFarlane isn't whispering his darkest, most humbling secrets to me as he would a family member, but that really doesn't matter. The guy, in every public breathe he takes, simply exhumes the properties of being a better-than-you asshole, someone who considers themselves an elitist without realizing they aren't one of the elite. It comes through in his voice, his head movements, and his art. Family Guy is still making me laugh on occasion, but a couple laughs at "haha tom cruise did do that" doesn't change anything.

[Just!n]

So your options are to either disconnect your opinion of a man's personal character from the television series he's attached to, stop watching his shows entirely, or continue watching while stewing with contempt on account of some very specious reasoning. You obviously don't seem too attached to Family Guy, but if the first two options aren't to your liking you'll just have to concede that the way he conducts himself away from the show is probably directly responsible for those occasional laughs the show affords you.

As a fan of WWE you should be more than adept at disassociating a television show from the personal image of its creator.

[Patrick]

It really is the third option. On occasion his sense of humor will tickle my fancy, but most of the time it's a big sigh to both him and the program he creates. However, no one should be exempt from "It's not like you know him!" because if you've posted anything on the internet or ever been interviewed or created any form of art then it will be a good, if small, taste of character. I'm not claiming to know MacFarlane's innermost feelings or whatever, but conclusions can be built from videos you see on youtube.

And then, it's for all mediums. Triple H has bad matches because Paul Levesque is lazy and CM Punk is so focused because Phil Brooks is so passionate. If you play a serial killer on TV it doesn't mean "YOU AREEE A SERIAL KILLER", but the dedication and style to your craft (along with all the shoot videos) say a lot about a person.

[Andy]

I like meeting people whose art I appreciate but I don't like to force the conversation either. I can imagine what it's like to have to be all "thanks so much" to people all the time, and it's a rare occasion when it feels like it's worth being part of that barrage.

Basically I envision those people as kind of like that kid with the dyed red hair from the Wrestlemania meetup years back. The one who would stand a foot away from a circle of people talking, stare vacantly about while waiting for a moment to hop into a conversation and then immediately cower away.

[Zack Hoagie]

hello i am popular poster patrick allow me to get angry about everything