Mon, February 7, 2005
MacFarlane on politics—4:44 PM
Seth MacFarlane on American Dad:
There are people on staff who have [said] that the upside to a second Bush term is that it makes American Dad work better. To me, the price is too high. I would gladly give up the comedy to have a President Kerry. But you work with what you have.
I don't know; I'm pretty sure there would have been tons of comedy with President Kerry, too. Just different comedy. (Have you seen him speaking since the election? He's almost as bad as he was before the debates!)
American Dad shows some potential – it isn't as bad as I kept hearing it was going to be, but I hope the May episodes are better than last night's. MacFarlane is funny and the rest of his A.V. Club interview is interesting, but I'm suspicious of anyone who liked Kerry for any reason other than he wasn't Bush.
Joe Mulder — Tue, 2/8/05 2:25pm
Here's my take on "American Dad," based (admittedly so, admittedly so) on only one episode:
Simply put, too much like "Family Guy." Same humor, with a slice of relatively simplistic political "satire."
I thought of it this way: imagine one of those guys who can spin, like, 12 basketballs on his body at once; cool trick, guy makes a living doing it, astounding crowds everywhere. Then, the guy announces he's got a brand new act, and you go see it, and, he's spinning 12 10 volleyballs. You'd be like, "okay, cool, but, I'd rather just watch him spin 12 basketballs."
And in this analogy, obviously, Seth MacFarlane is, of course, the 7th volleyball.
Har! Just kidding; he's the guy.
Joe Mulder — Tue, 2/8/05 2:26pm
D'oh. That shouldn't say "spinning 12 10 volleyballs," it should say "spinning 10 volleyballs."
Brandon — Tue, 2/8/05 2:30pm
I agree with the volleyballs.
Wait, no! I mean Joe! Joe!
Bee Boy — Tue, 2/8/05 4:09pm
Har! See, on Chickenpants, Brandon has asked for a "comments preview" feature to prevent this kind of situation, but my feeling is that if you don't notice it in the comments box when you type it in, you're unlikely to notice it on a comments preview screen 4 seconds later. You're likely to just say "Yeah, yeah. I know what I said. Post it, for Chrissakes. And bring me my bourbon!"
Maybe we'll go with the brilliant Basecamp idea (which I already had in the first place, but we'll give them credit for doing it in a cool way and being cool guys, because dammit – they are cool guys) of having comments be editable for the first 15 minutes if you're logged in. Then, only the anonymous cowards will be penalized for their hasty posting!
Usually, when someone makes an honest mistake in the comments and expresses it in a follow-up comment, I go in and fix the original and delete the follow-up, but in this case by the time I got to it, Brandon had already posted something funny in response to it. I can't take out something funny! And Brandon's comment wouldn't make any sense without the error.
So, the error stands.
I did change "or course" to "of course" for you though – thanks Brandon for not making a crack about that.
(Oh, shit. Now I did. Should I change it back?)
Oh, yeah. American Dad. First of all, I think that the Family Guy comedy style is good enough that I'll gladly watch more shows that follow a similar comic style – the flashbacks, the non-sequiturs, the quick and silly style of animation. (All mentioned in the A.V. interview, by the way – can you believe The Simpsons actually stopped doing those things because Family Guy was doing them? No wonder The Simpsons sucks lately.) And you're going to have to go way out of your way to make a show bad enough to keep me from watching it if it has an alien with a Paul Lynde voice. I'm sorry, you just are.
Also (and I realize that, standing on my side of the fence, it's easy for me to say this) I think that political satire which is funny is funny regardless of whether I agree with it or not – no air quotes needed. I laugh when Jon Stewart makes fun of the Democrats. (Okay, bad example – I laugh the same weary, commiserative laugh that he laughs.) I get a kick out of the James Lileks stuff, when it's funny. It's only when he says "Russians abused Chechnyans, so it's no big deal if we electrocute a few Iraqi genitals" that I take issue with him. I think MacFarlane has to respond to the world around him. If he's doing a show that spoofs the American family, the suburban culture, and the current geopolitical... thing, he can't avoid pointing out the absurdities of our world – it's not his fault that a disproportionate amount of those absurdities are generated by the Bush Administration.
Also, remember that these animated shows take months and months to produce. For all we know, back when he wrote and recorded the pilot, there was still no distant possibility for Family Guy's resurrection on the horizon. So of course he incorporated elements of that show that he wished hadn't died so soon. (The talking fish, for example. Although, as much as I hated seeing a talking fish, I pretty much forgave it once they told us how it happened. That was funny.) Then, Fox comes around and asks for Family Guy again, and suddenly he's got two shows that are pretty similar. One can hope (as I hoped in my initial post) that American Dad will improve by May. The new shows may retool the dynamic between the politics and the family stuff, and may stray from Family Guy a little further. (Once the characters have more time to develop, that will help, too.)
Just like I said (and "Newsweek" subsequently parroted) – NUMB3RS looks, at first glance, like another procedural law enforcement show with a high-concept "hook", but once it finds a network and an audience with that, it'll evolve into a show of its own. (Plus, Sabrina Lloyd, people. Come on!)
I don't know when this became about me defending American Dad – I don't really care that much about it. I guess I'm defending the right of people to make fun of Bush, even if they do it in a similar way that people have been making fun of him for five years already, just because I agree with them. Also: alien with Paul Lynde voice. I'll take that over just about anything, free elections in Iraq included.
Joe Mulder — Tue, 2/8/05 5:11pm
I guess I'm defending the right of people to make fun of Bush, even if they do it in a similar way that people have been making fun of him for five years already, just because I agree with them.
Oh, I don't care if people make fun of Bush; I'll defend to the death (provided there's nothing good on the TiVo that I'd miss) their right to do so. I just never thought any of the political stuff they did on "Family Guy" was funny (they did one or two jokes), and I didn't think any of the political stuff they did on "American Dad" was funny. Not just 'cause it's the other side; I think Al Franken and "the Daily Show" are funny. It's not a side-of-the-aisle thing, it's just a what-I-think-is-funny thing.
And yeah, I'll watch "Amercan Dad" for a while when it comes on, but, I'm not expecting much. Though of course the Paul Lynde alien means it'll get a lot more leeway than another show would.
[btw, I personally am much more likely to spot a typographical error if I can look at what I've written in another form; I'll often proofread a 'Porter article twice in TextEdit, then, when it's actually on the site, spot a mistake or two that I missed during each one of my proofreadings]
Brandon — Tue, 2/8/05 6:19pm
the flashbacks, the non-sequiturs, the quick and silly style of animation. (All mentioned in the A.V. interview, by the way – can you believe The Simpsons actually stopped doing those things because Family Guy was doing them? No wonder The Simpsons sucks lately.)
I was struck by this too when reading the interview (and in fact, you beat me to posting about it), and I agree with your sentiment. One of several bad decisions made by Simpsons producers in recent years.
It's not a side-of-the-aisle thing, it's just a what-I-think-is-funny thing.
I'm with "Volleyballs" Mulder (so hoping that sticks) on this one. And like him, I'm still going to be giving it a few more chances. MacFarlane's earned it.
Bee Boy — Tue, 2/8/05 6:20pm
So, it's settled, people. Post your comments on the 'Porter first for proorfreading – then type them in over here when you're done.
"Mike Wagner" — Wed, 2/9/05 6:55am
I agree with 'ol "Volleyballs" Mulder on this as well, regarding the side of the aisle thing. Phil Hartman was just as enjoyable as Reagan or Clinton, for instance. Sigh, I miss Phil Hartman.
As far as serving (ha!) Joe with the "Volleyballs" moniker, I think it should stick, unless we want to move to an advanced "Volleyarksie" or "Arksieballs" label. But I do like the idea of nailing someone with a nickname for one moment of infamy like Jim "Wrong Way" Marshall or George W. "Oops, what weapons, did I say weapons? I meant liberation" Bush.
Joe Mulder — Wed, 2/9/05 9:32am
Or Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson.
"Mike Wagner" — Wed, 2/9/05 11:11am
LOL, but remember, ol "Two Sheds" Jackson did not actually have two sheds, while Jim Marshall did run the wrong way and Volleyballs Mulder...well, you know...
Brandon — Wed, 2/9/05 4:07pm
Hee hee, ho ho, just noticed this...
Post your comments on the 'Porter first for proorfreading
Note the extra R. Lord knows I've been guilty of plenty of typos on this site; I just found that one especially humorous.
Bee Boy — Wed, 2/9/05 5:12pm
Damn you. Now that you know I don't fix typos if people call attention to them...
(grumbles under his breath, considers convening a committee to revise the 473-page onebee manual of comment posting policies)
This is what I get for using Firefox for a day. In Safari, I have "check spelling as you type" enabled.
Brandon — Sat, 3/5/05 9:58am
Har! See, on Chickenpants, Brandon has asked for a "comments preview" feature to prevent this kind of situation, but my feeling is that if you don't notice it in the comments box when you type it in, you're unlikely to notice it on a comments preview screen 4 seconds later. You're likely to just say "Yeah, yeah. I know what I said. Post it, for Chrissakes. And bring me my bourbon!"
But at the very least, I think it would eliminate any and all formatting errors - like, for example, the one I made in my comment this morning on the Graham essay. If I had been able to preview, I would have definitely noticed that my italics formatting didn't take. I'm just saying...
Bee Boy — Sun, 3/6/05 6:28pm
Wow! Way to track down an ancient thread just to show me up! Many, many things are in the works for onebee – among them a brief window (say, 15 minutes) for editing comments in case anything goes awry.
I, too, was surprised that you can't split italics over multiple paragraphs; although now that I see it, I guess it does make sense.
Of course, none of these exciting new features can be completed until after Chickenpants launches...