MacFarlane also developed two other shows for FOX. One being American Dad. A show about a Husband and Father, Stan Smith who works for the CIA and can be as stupid as Peter Griffin's character on McFarlane's bigger hit show. The show takes shots at both sides of the political spectrum and often finds itself poking fun at the conservatives more often for laughs. Like Family Guy, MacFarlane voices Smith along with Roger, a fat, shut-in alien who drinks, smokes and watches TV all day and lives with the Smith's, and several other characters.
In the Fall of 2009, MacFarlane helped create a spin-off show based around Family Guy character Cleveland Brown. The Cleveland Show, created by him and fellow Family Guy writer Mike Henry, is the third of MacFarlane's show's that air in the five show lineup on FOX. The show is based around Brown's return to his hometown in fictional Stoolbend, Virginia and reuniting with a former who high school crush, who had just split from her husband. The two marry at the end of the pilot, and Cleveland and his overweight, awkward son, Cleveland Jr., move in with Donna and her two children. MacFarlane provides the voice of Ted, a talking Bear who works at the Cable company and has an accent. If you didn't notice, MacFarlane's show's always feature an obscure character that could only be in a cartoon.
OK, you're probably saying to yourselves, "So what, anyone could come up with these weird characters and story ideas," with some also adding that, "it's FOX, they'll take anything." Well, despite that low brow humor that comes along with Family Guy and his other shows, you have to commend MacFarland as a very talented person. Anybody who watches Family Guy can see that Seth enjoys referencing material from Star Wars, the 1980's and having episodes make references to a particular movie (most likely from the 80's). MacFarlane has also been known to have his characters break out into song during an episode, at times not showing any relevance to the show, but keeps the TV audience laughing and at time shaking their heads, wondering what they are watching. He and the cast even did an album called "Family Guy: Live in Las Vegas" back in 2005.
What makes it interesting is that MacFarlane introduces old types of music forms from the past to a young audience between the age of 14 and 30. Recently, Family Guy had an episode that referenced Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin with the song "Mr. Booze" from the movie "Robin and the Seven Hoods. What is so intriguing about MacFarlane's parody's of videos like "Mr. Booze" is that it sends fans looking for the song on You Tube and coming to realize that it had been done before, many leaving comments in the original that say "Like this if family guy brought you here :)" for example.
MacFarlane has also made songs that had been lost popular again. In the show's fourth episode in it's return from cancellation, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" was featured in an episode and soon became popular once again, especially with young adults/college students. Another episode featured Rick Astlety's "Never Gonna Give You Up," or as many know it as getting Rick Rolled on You Tube, when the music video appears instead of the video you thought you were watching. Others include the Music Man's "Shipoopi," which is featured in an episode where Peter joins the New England Patriots and celebrates the songs by singing and dancing to the song. What makes it even funnier is that the Family Guy parody will appear before the original in a You Tube search.
While doing parodies of the songs, MacFarlane has been able to bring his Family Guy character's into old films when doing parodies. One that sticks out is the Gene Kelly dance scene in "Anchors Aweigh" a film from the mid 1940's, where Kelly dance with an animated mouse. Stewie was inserted into the scene in the place of the mouse and performed the exact dance in the episode "Road to Rupert." It was also done with the music video from A-Ha's "Take on Me" from the 80's.
With so many of these different ideas that MacFarlane has developed, it requires a talented person to perform these musical numbers. MacFarlane sings in all of his characters voices, which shows talent. But MacFarland himself has showed a glimpse of the old Rat Pack days of Sinatra and Dean Martin. More recently, while watching Conan, MacFarlane was a guest, and was talking about Family Guy and about a future film that he is developing. At the end of the interview, MacFarlane tells O'Brien that he has an album coming out later this year. MacFarlane performed "Sadder But Wiser Girl" from the Music Man, which which he parodied in an episode. MacFarlane has also performed songs from great crooners like Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. In a way bringing back a genre of music that disappeared over the last 30 years.
I enjoy Sinatra once in a while and it nice to see someone like Seth MacFarlane introduce his younger Family Guy audience to this classic music style. If McFarlane had not become an animator, I bet he would have tried to become a singer, which has become a reality since his name is slowly become more known to public through his success with Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show. So I guess no matter how low Family Guy goes for laughs or offends a certain group, you have to remember that there is a lot of talent coming from Seth MacFarlene, otherwise a talent for his character Peter is winning a fart contest with Michael Moore.
No comments:
Post a Comment