Their videos compiled are excellent. It’s unfortunate their TV show didn’t do too well. But they were the best at making those videoclips for the interwhebs. It’s a damn shame they weren’t paid out the ass. 

For example, take two bits from a recent American Dad episode.

Bit A
The wife and husband (Francine and Stan or Peter and Lois) are having a large argument. The wife threatens to enroll in a televised marriage counseling show called, “Oh No He Didn’t (Oh Yes He Did)”

You can imagine where Family Guy would take this. They would cut to a TV show with “sassy” black host and audience, who would wag and snap their fingers at the poor man who did his wife wrong. The joke would be the tired portrayal of the nagging, always-upset, “sassy” black woman. 

Even The Cleveland Show would blow the bit. Because the main family is black, the show assumes licence to ridicule black culture, as if they are a part of it (even though the character Cleveland is essentially blackface). In this bit, they would probably put the show on BET. 

But on American Dad, the television show had an all white audience. The joke was about the show itself. It was about the uncomfortable husbands in the audience dragged along to watch one husband be scolded about being a jerk by all of their wives, and a very judgmental host. The joke worked, and it was funny.*

*Now, this is disregarding that the bit relies on the “nagging wife” trope, but in the episode, Francine, who some would see as a “nagging wife” is not in the wrong- it’s Stan, who refuses to make time to spend with her. 

Bit B (that sounds funny)

In this bit, the father is on vacation, and asks a gardener/landscaper to take a picture of him and his wife with his brand new iPhone. He begins to tell the gardener how to use it, but to his surprise, the gardener has the same device himself, in his pocket. The father, who assumed nothing of the “lowly hotel gardener with a Spanish accent”, emphasizes that his device is the latest issue, but as it turns out, the gardener owns the same exact one. Throughout the episode the gardener continues to “one-up” the father by having better inspirational quotes and being better at paddle-ball. 

In a Family Guy episode, we would probably see a gardener with a thicker accent who would embody some sort of racist stereotype. He might insist to use his own camera, a raggedy machine, he might have his truckload of kids take it for him, or they might cast Consuela, the Mexican maid character, to refuse to take the photo. It would all end with Peter taking the picture himself, saying that this was all a waste of time. 

The Cleveland Show would play with the same racist tropes, butCleveland might be friendly. The show is built around this idea that “poking fun” at all races brings us all together. But in doing so, they just milk some of the most offensive jokes out of situations. So they might portray a landscaping immigrant in a far worse light, but would end the joke with Cleveland laughing with the gardener. As if that negates all the racist jokes that came before.

American Dad made sure the joke was on Stan, not the gardener. Stan looked like an ignorant idiot after assuming a gardener couldn’t have a phone. The gardener was a normal guy; his accent wasn’t absurdly exaggerated. It was realistic. He was dressed in a normal uniform, his features weren’t strange. The gardener was portrayed as a friendly, awesome, average guy. The joke was that Stan couldn’t imagine that a brown gardener with a Spanish accent could be a cool guy, and that the gardener was cooler than he was. Stan’s ignorance is the joke- and he is the only one this way. Everyone else treats the gardener like a normal dude. 

The point I’m trying to make here is that it is all about choices. Family Guy is a show that makes fun of who they see as stupid people and celebrities. The Cleveland Show does the same, but by making fun of everyone, everything is okay. 

But American Dad is a show that generally ridicules ignorance and bigotry. The world is full of reasonable people, except for the one wacko  the protagonist  Who is always the butt of the joke. The joke about the tv show wasn’t problematic because there weren’t black people in the audience. The joke wasn’t problematic because the audience was neutral. Black people are placed in American Dad, but I don’t complain when they aren’t because those writers understand they may not know how to write black characters properly. They don’t put them in when they don’t know how to use them. That solution is solved by having more black writers. I would be surprised to see any black writers on Family Guy- I’m even surprised to see women there. I know several black people work on The Cleveland Show. Only they can decide for themselves how much they can tolerate. 

But American Dad either has a few more black writers, or white writers with sense. And Seth McFarlane must write less for that show, because it is obviously funnier.

And smarter.

I don’t like the guy, I don’t like the people he surrounds himself with, and I don’t like that he doesn’t pay his writers. (joke)

One of the cutest romance/comedy flicks ever made.

“Let us fuck!”

Many of them are now turning to political office, I am sure. 

They have consistently provided the most comprehensive analysis and accurate projections- they make for the perfect political strategists.

Really, though. You just can’t write punchlines to punchlines. Its so hard to do.

Its beyond meta. 

Jerry Seinfeld has launched a website, which serves as a warehouse for pretty much everything he’s ever performed.

JerrySeinfeld.com went live Friday morning with three short comedy clips — “The Fattest Man in the World” from The Tonight Show in 1981, “Do the Horses Know They’re Racing?” from a 1988 HBO special and “No Room in the Newspaper” from The Tonight Show in 1990.

The site is taking an unusual approach to offering the content by running just three new clips per day. The clips, which range from 30 seconds to two minutes, will be available for only 24 hours and then will be replaced with three new ones.

On the site, Seinfeld explains he’s offering the site to young would-be comedians. “Somewhere out there are 10-year-olds just waiting to get hooked on this strange pursuit,” he writes. “This is for them.”

(Mashable.com)