For years Family Guy has been a staple of Fox Network's "Animation Domination" lineup along with The Simpsons and King of the Hill. In recent years, with the addition of American Dad! to the lineup and more recently the addition of The Cleveland Show to Fox's Sunday night programming, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has truly dominated "Animation Domination" time slot wise. The Simpsons now remains as the only show on the network on that night that was not created by MacFarlane. To me, it has become apparent as Matt Groening's Simpsons celebrate their twentieth anniversary on the air, that they still have what it takes to make people laugh. How much longer can Peter Griffin keep making us laugh before enough is enough and the eventual decline in ratings followed by cancellation?
Family Guy had a good run. That run may continue, but I have a feeling that the show has reached the point where it will not get any better than it was before. I realize that cartoon shows rely on ridiculous story lines but since the second half of last season, Family Guy has gone off the deep end. It is starting to show signs of running low on new ideas. Let's see, first Joe's wife Bonnie finally gives birth after being pregnant for the show's entire run. It would have been clever if the developed the newborn Susie Swanson into a new character as a talking foil to Stewie, but that has not happened yet. They had Cleveland move to Virginia and start his own show. The Cleveland Show is a dull, unoriginal rehash of The Brady Bunch with elements of Family Guy only with the spotlight on Peter's slow talking sidekick and it also leaves a void back in Quahog. In an attempt to make things interesting, they had Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd move into Cleveland's old house and it turns out that they are spies for the U.S. government but even that did not live up to Family Guy's former glory. Other recent crazy plots include Lois finding out that she is actually Jewish, Peter being injected with the gay gene, and Peter developing amnesia and having to relearn everything, including "Surfing Bird". Perhaps the worst change made recently to the show is Quagmire's sudden development of moral fiber. All of a sudden, he volunteers in soup kitchens and chews Brian out for his intellectual phoniness. Brian had always been the voice of reason on the show, but it was Quagmire, of all people, who tarnished Brian's integrity as a character.
In the most recent episode, Meg exacts revenge on the world. After years of being pushed around by her parents, her dog, and her classmates, Meg goes to jail for three months for harboring an escaped convict that she fell in love with through a school pen pal program. Prison hardens her, she curb stomps Peter and get's suspended for breaking her class mates skulls. Before she is able to rob a drug store and leave town, Brian reminds her that he used to care about her and that she doesn't have to live her life like this. And just like that, she goes back to normal. This puts the show's future in a tough situation. If the characters keep ragging on Meg like they have since the show began, nothing will ever happen because she has already snapped. They can't have her snap again and it still be quality entertainment. If they treat Meg with more respect, a big part of the humor on the show will be lost.
Part of the problem Family Guy has is its desire to be better than The Simpsons. No matter how long either of those shows last, they will always be compared to one another. For Family Guy, that is a fight that you will never win. The Simpsons have been on television for twenty years now and they have been consistently good. The key to their success has been character development in both quality and quantity. While Family Guy has maybe twenty regularly occurring characters, The Simpsons has a whole town of identifiable characters. Besides the Simpson family, there is Moe the bartender, Principal Skinner, Comic Book Guy, Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Reverend Lovejoy, Groundskeeper Willie, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Bob, Sideshow Mel, Apu, Ralph Wiggum, Milhouse, Nelson, Lenny, Carl, Barney, and many many more. Some fans may say they The Simpsons is not as good as it used to be, but it still provides quality laughs and social commentary. It also has not had to rely on irrelevant pop culture references and grown men falling out of bathtubs over and over again to get people to laugh.
Only time will tell if Family Guy has peaked or if The Simpsons will ever truly plummet in quality but based on my observations, I have a feeling that Family Guy has lost a step in the game that is television. If Meg snaps again or if I hear "Surfing Bird" again, I will know that it's over.
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