When Family Guy first premiered, I was not in a discriminating mood. With the 1990s containing a wealth of clever, surreal cartoons, why should I be? Nickelodeon produced Doug; Ren and Stimpy and Rockos Modern Life among other fine cartoons(Yes, this includes Spongebob).All had quirky, dreamlike animation and surprisingly sophisticated stories and dialog. The Simpsons became an outright phenomenon, perhaps not as brilliant as its biggest defenders claim it to be, but a very fine investment of your time and certainly dismisses the false axiom that all TV is junk. South Park started out as a crude but hilarious attack on everything with unique and intelligent satire underneath. It evolved to become a Monty Python- esquire show with outrageous concepts and brutally swift and sharp societal critiques(Such as their defense of the noble underpants gnomes) and eventually settled to be entirely self referential and "meta" like the Simpsons did, and has unfortunately jumped the shark. Family Guy is superficially like The Simpsons and South Park. It pushes buttons and is a favorite among college students and bestiality enthusiasts. However, what it has in loquacity it lacks in true wit.
The show is famous for its use of gimmicks, especially for flashbacks. Many are references to bad TV sitcoms or commercials. Some are funny(Especially from the first two seasons), most are not. Are references inherently funny? I'm not sure, but they are mostly what the show stands on considering that its characters are painfully uninteresting. Where Homer and Bart have charm, and Cartman has an artillery of self awareness and pure outrageousness to back up his awful behavior, Peter Griffin has no excuse. He's just a loud, obnoxious pig. Anything funny coming from his character is only because the writers forget how to be unfunny that day. Lois is also very shallow and dull; Meg is a prop, only to be abused; Chris is borderline retarded and only occasionally funny, and the two main stars of the show(Stewie and Brian) are so inconsistent in their characterizations that it all really kind of pointless.
Other gimmicks I can't stand are when a character points to something obviously and lingers on it for an uncomfortably long time. This happens a lot lately, and I can't bear it any longer. Not just the oft mentioned chicken that likes to beat Peter up, I'm talking about the painful moments where they talk about pop culture and prod it as if they are alien spectators. That's not wit or even ironic humor, it's totally boring and lifeless.
Not that the show can't be funny, in fact some of the earlier episodes had me rolling. Highlights include the pilot episode, where Peter loses touch with reality after losing his precious television; when Peters religious zealot father shows up and wreaks havoc; When Peter becomes a narc at Megs school, and the "pancake" episode. I suspect these are the episodes that accidentally incorporated actual human traits in its characters, or merely were times the writers had actual comedic inspiration.
One last thing, the show is not offensive. It's only offensive to those who wouldn't watch the show in the first place, so it's almost like a circle jerk to the choir of hipsters.
