Ever since Fox raised Family Guy from the dead a few years ago, it seems the network has bent over backwards to placate series creator/executive producer/star Seth MacFarlane. He now has two additional series on the network schedule (American Dad and the 1st-year entry, The Cleveland Show), and just for kicks, MacFarlane is given this half-hour special, bumping aside The Simpsons for one night. So, I figured I'd take a look and see just what the fuss was about that drew the PTC's attention.
The program opened innocently enough with MacFarlane and co-star Alex Borstein (ex-Mad TV) performing the Family Guy theme song while the more familiar opening from that series appeared on the screen. From there, it was an animated skit with the Griffin family loaded with sexual innuendos, followed by MacFarlane doing a cabaret number, a song taken from one of his favorite movies (though he didn't identify the film). Apparently, it had a World War II theme, as Alex interrupted three times to complain about the rude treatment the Jews got from the Nazis in WWII. Ok, so that's what the PTC had a problem with. Luckily for the rest of us, the better stuff was yet to come.
There were no real commercials. Instead, Stewie Griffin (MacFarlane, of course) queued up trailers for a pair of coming attractions from Warners, "Sherlock Holmes" and "Ninja Assassin". This after Microsoft had pulled out as a sponsor, to the delight of the PTC. In between trailers, MacFarlane presented a series of faux celebrity screen tests, including Bea Arthur (Borstein) auditioning for "Showgirls" and Gregory Peck (MacFarlane) testing for "Transformers". Silly stuff. Borstein scored big with a mimic of Renee Zellweger that actually sounded more like a more coherent cousin of Miss Swan (from Mad TV), and doing deaf actress Marlee Matlin covering Lady GaGa's "Poker Face". This prompted the real Matlin to make an appearance, serving up a receipt by doing a couple of jokes at Alex's expense. When she left, the Oscar winner (for "Children of a Lesser God") pulled off a tablecloth from one of the front row tables.
Referencing Family's past cancellations, MacFarlane then queued a pair of fake pilots "that never made it", including a Hill Street Blues parody that was another red flag for the morality police, and a Western starring Patrick Warburton (Rules of Engagement). That led to a series of jokes using shameless plugs for The Cleveland Show to censor swear words. Talk about throwing the new show under the bus! MacFarlane closed with a quick medley of songs using the voices of Peter & Stewie to cover, among other things, Elton John's "Rocket Man" (as Stewie) and The Trashmen's 1-hit wonder, "Surfin' Bird" (as Peter), which actually comes pretty close to a case of Peter/Seth lip-syncing the original song. As was the case earlier, footage from Family Guy complemented the songs. Another plus was musical director Walter Murphy getting some face time for the first time since, maybe, the 1970's, when he had a huge hit with "A 5th of Beethoven". (Yep, same guy)
On the whole, the show just flew by even quicker than any of MacFarlane's cartoons, and aside from the Jewish jokes and the FG skit at the start, there really wasn't a whole lot that justifies the PTC's whining.
Rating: B-.
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