Panels | Cultural Learnings

[As noted yesterday, I’m a bit behind on my pieces on the various episode submissions for the series prizes at the Emmy Awards. With the nominations an exciting week away, I want to try to get through these before the weekend so that my predictions can start on Sunday. So, some catchup is in order (Although I want to write a bit more about three of the remaining shows, all for different reasons).]

Family Guy (FOX)

Episode Submission: “Padre de Famile”

Synopsis: Peter discovers that he isn’t an American citizen, and after embracing his Mexican roots discovers the struggles of the illegal immigrant in modern America. And there’s fart jokes.

My Thoughts: I’ll admit right now that I am not a Family Guy fan – the show does nothing for me, and while I might watch it on occasion I never feel particularly content with what I watch.This episode is exactly the same for me. It has too much vomit, for one thing, and there are times when its jokes just go one step further than they need to.

But the thing is that Family Guy is also extremely funny, and there’s some great gags here. I particularly enjoyed the 25,000 Pyramid sidebar, and there was some great one-liners all over the place. The episode feels grounded in sitcom traditions with a dash of absurdity, and some of the pop culture stuff was more clever than I probably want to give it credit for.

Panel Potential: This is a bit of a wild card, but apparently it went over quite well in the panels. How well is an interesting question, as the episode features a lot of stuff that older viewers won’t get but also some things they will. It’s also a very “laugh-out-loud” kind of episode, taking a pointed social issue and just having a little bit of fun with it. It was more grounded than most Family Guy episodes, which should help it. Still, the animation issue could hold it back with some more traditional voters.