hopelessly devoted to deconstructing popular culture and conventional wisdom, one blog at a time

Published Sunday, May 01, 2005 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

FAMILY GUY RETURNS: And the worth was wait it...wait a second...the curious saga of Seth MacFarlane's subervisive animated sitcom reaches its zenith (unless you're like me, and you watch it on your fancy flat-screen Sony plasma HDTV -- say yahey, everyone, yahey!) tonight with the relaunch of Family Guy on Fox. Yes, it's as patently offensive yet as freakin' hi-larious as ever. The relaunch of MacFarlane's American Dad? Well, not as much. What? You're surprised by that? You shouldn't be, if you've paid attention to the other trends in animated network sitcoms. Futurama could never duplicate the success of The Simpsons, and similarly, King of The Hill is no Beavis and Butt-Head. Not that any of these second efforts were (or are) bad. Just not the same. So I wonder, do animated gurus have a sophomore slump, too? Discuss.