Clappy Takes on Television

[BoJack Horseman]

it seems today that all you see are reviews by clappy on sbc

We can't help it. Clappy is a great reviewer.

[Clappy]

….11^th best show…what the fuck was I thinking?  What a disgrace that best shows of all-time list is.

 

I still stand by my fandom of Family Guy.  In its prime, I consider Family Guy better than The Simpsons.  I became a fan of Family Guy first and while I definitely respect and really like The Simpsons for all that it has accomplished in its time, my love for Family Guy was far more.

 

But holy crap.  Family Guy has become abysmal.  I absolutely despite present day Family Guy.  I mean people can complain all they want about The Simpsons not being as good as it once was.  The only thing I can say about modern day Simpsons is the universal statement for how it currently is.  Boring and lazy.  At least it’s better than whatever the hell happened to Family Guy.

 

Family Guy has become a train wreck of MASSIVE proportions.  Even Seth MacFarlane himself hates what it’s become.  The only reason this is still running is because it’s the most successful show in Fox’s Sunday line-up with still the highest viewership.  Which is a travesty that 5 to 6 million people still tune in to watch the Griffins be the worst cartoon family today instead of watching great shows like Brooklyn Nine Nine, hell even The Last Man on Earth.  Like these last five years in particular have spawned so many horrible episodes that this won’t be the last time I revisit this show.  I think it is due justice that I tackle a good portion of them because Family Guy is easily one of the worst shows running today.  Which means a good sized library full of material to review.

 

Where do I start?  How about the episode that feels the least like Family Guy itself:

 

SCREAMS OF SILENCE: THE STORY OF BRENDA Q

 

 

You know it’s one thing to expect intolerable cruelty on modern day Family Guy played off for laughs, but it’s another thing entirely to watch Family Guy dive into serious subject matters terribly.  So let’s begin, shall we?

 

Peter decides to go fishing with Quagmire and Joe.

 

Clappy: Just like all Family Guy beginnings…filler.  I would go more in depth about how boring the at least 1/3 filler that we always get from this show, but we have more important things to riff instead.  Continue.

 

Quagmire fails to show up, they decide to try to find him at his house. After entering his home, they discover that he has hanged himself in a fit of autoerotic asphyxiation.

 

Clappy: Get it?  Because that’s how David Carradine killed himself.  One offensive joke down, over a hundred more to go.

 

Attempting to save his life, they take him to the hospital, where they discover that he is in a coma. Peter invites Quagmire's sister, Brenda, to visit him at the hospital, and she manages to wake up her brother.

 

Clappy: Ok I don’t get it.  What’s the reference here?  Anyone get this?  Because if you are going to reference something Family Guy, you’ve

done these shoe horned references at least 100 times better in the past.

 

Brenda also brings along Jeff Fecalman, her loud, meat-headed and abusive boyfriend, who terrorizes her throughout the night to the dismay of Quagmire and his neighbors.

 

Clappy: Oh so now you decide to think that domestic abuse is bad Family Guy?  YOU’VE PLAYED DOMESTIC ABUSE OFF AS COMEDY YOUR ENTIRE RUN.  WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY NOW?  YOU CAN’T CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE (at the time) TEN YEARS INTO YOUR RUN.  Even with these hideous double standards, they still try to play this off as funny.  Peter makes comments about how Brenda takes hits better now.  Jeff makes snide crude remarks about sexism and cheating on him with her brother.  That’s not funny.  THAT’S TERRIBLE. 

 

After a horrible night, Quagmire approaches Lois about talking to Brenda about leaving Jeff. At lunch, Lois and Brenda begin talking about the situation, and requests that Brenda remove her sunglasses, revealing a bruise over her eye. Upon seeing this, Lois tries to convince Brenda to leave Jeff, but Brenda only tries to justify Jeff's treatment of her, much to Lois' disgust.

 

Clappy: Wow these writers are doing such a hideous job at establishing Brenda as the victim.  It’s clear that she is suffering from emotional, physical, and mental trauma due to Jeff’s abuse.  These characters are so poorly established that we don’t even know what Brenda sees in Jeff and where Jeff’s abusive history came from.  It’s impossible to do an arch like this without establishing the characters in your universe and how they react to the ones around them.  That’s why this doesn’t work.  We need to know what Brenda sees in Jeff and why she doesn’t leave this relationship and vice versa.  What makes this even worse is that Family Guy ALWAYS takes their plot devices as over the top as possible.  Which means we get the impression that Brenda is absolutely oblivious to reality and it really pisses me as well as its viewer base off.

 

Later, at the bar, Peter, Quagmire and Joe discuss the matter, asking if the police can solve the situation which Joe responds that they can’t.

 

Clappy: Hey…writers…THAT IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.  EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SCENE WHERE JEFF BEATS BRENDA IS IN PUBLIC.  THAT’S CONSIDER LAW BREAKING YOU DIPSHITS.  THE POLICE ARE ABLE TO STEP IN.  I loathe it when the writers are this oblivious.  Joe witnesses it, the Griffins witness it, hell Quagmire’s house has been proven to have video cameras nearly everywhere.  Just take those tapes to the police station.  Joe could just arrest the guy on the spot.

 

Joe then suggests that the group have an intervention with Brenda, where Quagmire confesses that the sister he knew growing up no longer exists, and he wants her back. The two then embrace each other by hugging, until Jeff enters the intervention, causing Quagmire to tell him that Brenda has agreed to leave him. Frightened by Jeff, Brenda reveals that the two are engaged, and that she is pregnant.

 

Clappy: Shouldn’t you be setting up an intervention for the abuser?  That question aside, WHAT THE FUCK!?!  Quagmire of all characters is a registered sex offender who treats women as nothing more than useless sex objects.  Not only that, but….well let me put it this way:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zp79uY9dWo

 

Remember this?  This was Seahorse Seashell Party.  The episode right before this in terms of episode order where they clearly established that Meg should stay in her abusive relationship because status quo is god blah blah BULLSHIT.  HOW IN THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY THIS OFF ONE EPISODE AFTER TREATING THE ABUSIVE VICTIM THIS TERRIBLY ESPECIALLY WITH QUAGMIRE’S GOD AWFUL SPEECH.  I seriously hope Family Guy doesn’t think this lowly of people in an abusive relationship because that’s just straight up cruel.

 

Later that evening, Peter, Quagmire and Joe begin discussing possibly killing Jeff, with Joe (as a police officer), against the idea saying that it doesn't matter, while Quagmire says that it does and explains that people like Jeff never change.

 

Clappy: PEOPLE CAN CHANGE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.  I’m not standing up for abusers here, but it’s because Jeff is such a terribly established character that we don’t know if he knows what he is doing is wrong.  There are seriously some cases where domestic abuse is a part of some serious psychological trauma from one’s past.  Maybe that’s why they should have held the intervention for Jeff….it’s damn near impossible to think that the writers actually proofread this.

 

Joe explains to Quagmire that he could get sent to jail if he killed Jeff and is still against the idea until Jeff beats Brenda for simply changing the channel on Quagmire's TV. The three decide to talk Jeff into a hunting trip in an attempt to kill him, and make it look like an accident.

 

Clappy: SEE RIGHT HERE.  You could have taken Jeff on the hunting trip and been given a chance to explore Jeff’s character history.  But no.  We get forced fed dark comedy like we’ve been getting the entire fucking episode.

 

Having expected it, however, Jeff reveals his own gun, and knocks Peter and Joe out so that he can kill Quagmire in another part of the woods. Once there, Quagmire talks Jeff into fighting him instead, during which Quagmire is seemingly strangled to death. Jeff then goes to dig a grave to put Quagmire's body in, until he sees Quagmire, alive and well, behind the wheel of Peter's car. Quagmire reveals that he chokes himself every day and kills Jeff by running him over, smashing his head into a tree with Peter's car.

 

Clappy: ….just end this damn thing.  I feel like I’m watching a bad Lifetime movie.

 

Peter, Joe and Quagmire return home the next day, and present Brenda with a forged note from Jeff stating that he has decided to leave her. As Brenda breaks down in tears over Jeff, Peter notes that he wishes he could kill someone else and gets an idea about Mort before the episode ends.

 

Clappy: And Brenda will find another Jeff and will now have to deal with even more psychological trauma.  Fuck this episode.  So hard.

 

I mean what else can I say that hasn’t been said from AV Club and others in the past?  This is just appalling.  This episode did absolutely nothing to make people aware that domestic abuse is an actual problem.  I haven’t seen a PSA fucked up this bad since Cartoon All-Stars.  I watch Family Guy for comedical purposes.  This is just….I think that Lifetime metaphor is perfect.  It’s a terrible Lifetime movie.  Family Guy should have never tackled this subject matter.  Especially with all the contradiction this show has proven not just in the past, but even the present when it comes to the matter of domestic violence.  I loathe this episode so much and this episode has absolutely zero redeeming qualities.  Normally this would be the worst episode of any normal show, but this is Top 10 Worst Family Guy.  That’s how brutal Family Guy has become.  Trust me when I say I’m not done with this heinous series. 

[Metal Snake]

Didn't mind that episode much when I first saw it, couldn't stand it after a rewatch. The biggest defense one can make for Family Guy is that it's just for laughs and lulz...and then this episode comes along. It's terribly written, terribly shallow in its message, and terribly unfunny. I want to kill Quagmire more than ever in it which is hilariously ironic because we're supposed to "feel" for him in this episode rather than laugh at his terribleness. Brenda is not a woman for staying in an abusive relationship...that is one of the most grating things I have ever heard spoken in a cartoon. I also literally wanted to smash my head against the wall at the part where Joe clearly witnessed Jeff abuse Brenda, and instead of going over to the house and arresting him, he decides to help kill him despite just refusing to do so moments ago. It's so obvious no one proofread this.

[The Simpsons]

You know, since you're a music critic too and this is a TV review thread....

 

 

This short-lived MC Hammer cartoon made by DiC Entertainment.

 

EDIT: Also, just so you know, I suggested this a day before NC reviewed it. The fact that he reviewed it the day after I suggested this is merely a coincidence.