The original post: /r/television by /u/Academic_Comment8661 on 2025-11-25 02:30:17+00:00.
I like animated comedy sitcoms, I even like american dad a little, but I dont understand family guy at all. Everything feels so hamfisted to like an insane level, I have actually never seen a joke on family guy where they dont have a character blatantly explaining the joke and ruining it. Like if there is some visual gag, say for a bad example a lifeguard is explaining there is no sharks in the water with a giant shark bite in his side, without fail in instances like this family guy will have the character be like “well except for that shark that bit me last week ha ha”. I dont get how that doesnt ruin anything funny about the joke for other people, or if they actually like wouldnt get the joke without the person explaining it. It is every single time, I have never once seen a clip or episode where the joke is allowed to just exist without being explained or beaten to death.
For a real example what sparked this post is I just saw some clip where its a cutaway of two parents telling the kid hes adopted and the two parents have giant nipples poking out. The minute they have them say “son we have something to tell you” I already know the joke is going to be hes adopted but thats fine its still a good gag, however then immediately im like “they are going to point out the nipple difference thing even though we can immediately see it and its funnier if they dont point it out” and of course they do. When I tell this to people they are like “stop over analyzing it” but im not even, this is just my passive play by play of watching this sort of shit. Its normal to have passive expectations of whats going to happen next and a lot of humor relies on subverting that, which family guy always fails to do, you always know exactly what you are about to see before it happens. Why do this? Is the humor in overexplaining the joke or something?
Genuinely even though I vented a bit im more curious to hear from people who actually find it funny than people who agree and just want to bash people who like it.