What is UP with parents and Family Guy?

It’s not very funny, and the humor is a half step above potty jokes. My son likes it, my daughter doesn’t. As a parent I didn’t allow it at all until they were older. Cheap degrading sexual humor and poop jokes are not funny and not what I want my kids to think of as quality humor.

As zenvelo points out, it’s largely because the show contains a significant amount of sexual, disgust, and violence humor. Some parents also dislike the show entirely and think that it is simply not funny.

Personally, I think Family Guy is all right – it makes me roll my eyes a lot, and it’s so over-troped it can get pretty boring for stretches, even though the over-troping itself is a way of poking fun at other sitcoms. I get it, it’s just not funny. However, I also get a laugh surprised out of me about twice every show. Some things are very well done, like Brian acting like a real dog. “Hey Lois, there’s another dog in that car! Hey! Hey, other dog! Fuck you!” And comedy aside, the show sometimes makes frank and insightful comments about modern life – can’t think of one off the top of my head, but they’re in there.

And, zenvelo, it’s not as though the kids’ shows are really all that much less violent or disgusting (I’ll give you the sexual humor, mostly) – take Ren & Stimpy or Invader Zim, for example. Hell, if we want to go more recent, I flipped past a Saturday morning cartoon the other day that centered around three sumo wrestlers using their really graphically drawn enormous butts to fight evil.

Finally, potty humor has been around for a really long time, and some people love it. It may not be your cup of tea (it is not mine), but it’s unfair to characterize such jokes as across-the-board “not funny”.

I personally would question whether either Ren and Stimpy or Invader Zim were really intended for kids… I think that was an excuse for their creators to go ahead and make bizarre cartoons.

@ccrow True, true :)

Edit: Ok though, additional counterexamples: Batman The Animated Series, Dragonball Z, & X-Men were all quite violent and explored many heavier “adult” themes: loss, death, unrequited love, corruption, racism, and an insatiable lust for power were all tackled in these shows.

Well, it is an adult cartoon, probably something that kids shouldn’t be watching. :/ It’s not aimed for them. Parents have a right to be concerned, but it’s also their responsibility to monitor what their kids watch.

It is not a cartoon meant for kids . That’s probably why they’re concerned. Family Guy is no Simpsons.

I personally don’t find it very funny but that’s me. I have to be in an altered state to find it really funny.. If someone can’t be sober to find it funny, then it’s poor humor.

-Just because people laugh doesn’t mean it is funny. For example, cruel people (Edted out) find animal torture entertaining,/funny.

-Misogyny is not funny. Just because you put some evil message on the screen it doesn’t change anything.

-In addition to parents monitoring what their children are watching, producers should also stop producing disguisting stuff.

@madsmooney1214 “Don’t answer if you’re an overprotective parent.” You didn’t ask underprotective/unfit parents not to answer. And how about just right, parents? i.e not under and not over-protective?

For some reason, it’s rated so that we have to enter a password in order to see it. What kind of TV needs a password? It looks like a pretty stupid show, anyway.

@wundayatta ProTip; make it 0000 for everything.

There’s far too many references to 80’s and even late 70’s pop culture for it to be geared towards children. So many times I’ve watched that show and thought to myself “no way anyone under 30 would have caught that”.

The real problem here is people still assume that if a program is animated, it’s intended for children. That’s simply not the case anymore.

@FutureMemory Check out the dialogue from The Flintstones some time. Or Bugs Bunny for that matter. Lots of adult fare there.

I agree. I think many parents may assume (wrongfully) that because it’s animated, Family Guy is a kid’s show or is even a show that appeals to the whole family, like the Simpsons. It’s really not. Of course, some freak out and blame the show makers even though they have themselves to blame for lack of oversight and parenting.

It’s up to the parents to review and even pre-screen shows before letting the kids watch them, if they are so concerned. Don’t like it? Then block it from the family TV. I really dislike the show but the bad parents who let their kids watch it and then cry about it really annoy me.

Double your pleasure, double your fun.

@Trillian True. But at least those shows don’t have jokes about beating your daughter. Lol.

Jesus people, just because it’s a cartoon doesn’t mean it’s for kids.

I find it offensive, and wish that people had the decency not to air it in the first place. I am not a parent.

Don’t answer if you’re an overprotective parent. Because “overprotective” parent have worthless opinions, I suppose? God forbid that they speak from their years of experience.

I’m not a parent but I have many friends that are, and they let their kids watch it. Many of the “adult” jokes are above the heads of the children that watch, much like the stoner jokes of the old scooby doo show.

I think they’ve found away to make a show that kids enjoy while at the same time catering to adults. It’s up to the parents to teach the kids the rights and wrongs of life, sheltering them from watching an entertaining cartoon show isn’t going to remove the need for that responsibility.

With that being said, I find the show to be hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McKW5z3mNTQ&feature

@Symbeline I was making a joke about something which is no longer there. @seekingwolf had accidentally double posted. :-) You’re probably too young to remember the Doublemint gum commercials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Family_Guy

’’ The “You Have AIDS” sequence,[1] in which a barbershop quartet sings and dances around the bed of a man with end-stage AIDS about his diagnosis, drew protests from several AIDS service organizations.[2] In his 2006 book The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture, author Frederick S. Lane described Family Guy as among several television sitcoms that premiered in the 1980s and 1990s he felt were “aimed at the darker side of family life.”

@Symbeline “Well, it is an adult cartoon,.......”. GREAT answer. I love it.

“Other cartoons in the past had adult jokes too” (paraphrasing from above) That is not a fact. Family Guy and South Park are in a box all by themselves. They are nowhere near Flintstons, even if there were some adult-ish stuff there there I don’t rememeber any man-spiritedness in them. Also, it is just a statement of fact, it is not a mitigating circumstance. “So and so did it too.” So?

….that is ”mean spititedness in them.” ....