What do TV executives know? A big piddling nothing, that’s what.
Back in the heady days of 2002, some bigwigs at Fox noticed that a little cartoon called Family Guy (DVDs/CD/Books) – as good as early-90’s peak Simpsons (DVDs/CDs/Books) any day of the week – simply wasn’t getting the viewers, and rather unceremoniously pulled the plug.
How the mighty have risen …
It was only after being hauled off the air, you see, that the wildly offensive animated antics of the Griffin family began to gather momentum. The show went from being a little known secret, beaten in the viewing figure stakes by the likes of Wolf Lake, Bob Patterson and Emeril (no, us neither) to being a literal DVD phenomenon; the highest-selling shiny disc of the year, in fact.
It all makes sense, really. Who could fail to warm to a cartoon that features a sociopathic talking baby who enjoys reading Dostoyevsky (books) and tormenting his gay teddy bear (‘Rupert! You were watching the boys again, weren’t you?’).
Who on the planet could lack the humour-glands to appreciate a show in which Death fumbles around trying to ask a girl out and then kills her simply because he finds her boring? Who could manage not to gawk at the sheer tasteless audacity of naming a Paralympics-based episode Ready, Willing And Disabled?
Not many people, that’s who. Which is why the famous notion of the collective unconscious has finally come into it’s own: in bringing this masterpiece back to our screens.
Debuting on Sunday night, the all-new fourth season of the resurrected Family Guy stormed into the list of top 25 rated shows. Yessir, the fans had been settling in and preparing their funny cigarettes for this one … just as we Brits can do when the inevitable Season Four Boxset hits our shores.
Freakin’ sweet ….
Yahoo News Has More Animated Fun
Get every single episode of Family Guy on DVD at Amazon.co.uk and save 25%
[story by C J Davies]
