Family Guy Season 16 Episode 16 Review: Family Guy Through the Years
Lisa Babick
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There was plenty of commentary on Family Guy Season 16 Episode 16, so much, in fact, that it might take a couple of viewings to pick up on everything the show was trying to say, make fun of or slam.
Sometimes Family Guy likes to make you think, and this three-decade retrospective was one of those times.
If there's one decade I'm glad I wasn't born in, it is the 1950s. It's such a slow and simple decade. It's easy to criticize the 1950s looking back from an era that is so technologically advanced.
There is so much wrong with that decade but also some things that weren't so bad.
It was a simpler time sure, but not having 500 channels and big-screen televisions made it easier to have quality family time (though Meg never seems to be part of the Griffin family anymore. When is the last time she even had a line or two on an episode of Family Guy?)
Families actually communicated and interacted with each other. Now, most of our time is spent communicating with a screen of some sort or another.
Women weren't respected much back then. It was okay to pretend to hit or threaten a woman (ala Honeymooners) for a laugh. Women who worked were looked down upon, and isn't it amazing that more than 50 years later there is still a disparity between the work and salaries of men and women?
Lois going to work just to get Peter a television was stupid but showed how women of that time were brainwashed into thinking that their only place in life was to please their husbands.
There was also the constant fear of the atomic bomb and that had to be very scary, but like Peter and Chris showed, it was an accepted part of people's daily lives.
If you had no frame of reference other than this segment of Family Guy, you'd think that everyone from that era was a complete dolt. From the ridiculously simple sci-fi shows to the Raisin Bran commercial that had to define every word it said from raisins to hunger, it was hilarious.
And one final note about the 50s segment -- the Trump apartments reference was hilarious.
I wasn't too much into the 1960s segment although I thought the big car was kind of funny as was Peter flipping through 10 channels complaining there was nothing on and completely ignoring Kennedy's assassination.
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Television was taking hold of people with more programming but people kept wanting more and now we have so much TV we're almost overloaded. I mean, seriously, how much television can one person watch? If I wanted to watch all the television I'd love to, I wouldn't be doing much of anything else.
The 1970s segment was the best of the bunch.
The Drunken Clam as a disco joint was great, but Peter, Joe and Cleveland slicing throats with their sharp collars was hilarious.
How is it that only Quagmire was the one who went to Vietnam and the others didn't? And who didn't love the proud Americans who showed their support of Quagmire's sacrifice by spitting in his face?
And it's true, isn't it, that the same songs are played over and over and over again when it has to do with he Vietnam War as if those were the only songs that defined that part of history?
There were so many different parts of the 70s. Disco and hippies and the Vietnam War almost seem like they couldn't possibly intersect, but they all existed in the same timeframe -- sort of.
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Disco hit its height in the mid-70s and the Vietnam War ended in 1975. What's always amazing to me is that Zeppelin and the Stones were belting out songs at the same time lots of other people were doing the hustle.
How come Family Guy didn't hit on the groovy rock and roll that helped define that era?
Instead, Family Guy did their parody of Hair and that was okay. It was good enough to make me want to rent the movie or at least download "Let the Sunshine In" because that was such a groovy song.
So what did you think?
Did you like "Family Guy Through the Years"? What was your favorite decade?
Should Family Guy travel to other decades?
Hit the comments and share your thoughts.
If you need to catch up, you can watch Family Guy online right here via TV Fanatic!
