The Family Guy Compendium Review:

Synopsis

It's time to look back on all 50 episodes of exploits from the dysfunctional Griffin Family of Rhode Island.

Peter is the big lovable oaf who always speaks his mind, Lois is the doting mother who can't figure out why her baby son keeps trying to kill her, their daughter Meg is a teen drama queen who's constantly embarrassed by her family, Chris is a beefy 13-year-old who wouldn't hurt a fly (unless it landed on his hotdog), while Stewie is a maniacal one-year-old bent on world domination. The Griffins also have a dog, Brian, a sarcastic upper-class animal with a wit as dry as the martinis he drinks.

Consisting of 9 DVDs, this bumper box set houses all 50 episodes and an extensive selection of bonus material.

The Films

Family Guy is an absolute gem which, like Futurama, is less successful than it deserves to be. This hilarious show is wonderfully crude and edgy, probably more so than any other mainstream animated series around, as evidenced by the 15 certificate in comparison to the PG rating of The Simpsons.

The show revolves around the daily toils and troubles of Rhode Island's Peter Griffin and his dysfunctional family. Even the most cursory of inspections will allow viewers to draw parallels between Family Guy and Matt Groening's Simpson family: our central character is a fat, loudmouth father stuck in a dead end small town job like Homer Simpson, while his polite wife, nerdy daughter and slobbish son are the counterparts of Marge, Lisa and Bart respectively. Even the style of the show ressembles that of its Springfield-based rival - flurries of one-liners supported by pop culture references and outlandish visual humour.

However, despite these striking similarities, Family Guy manages to stand on its own two feet as a highly amusing show in its own right. As mentioned earlier, this series from Seth MacFarlane is much edgier and a certain episode, 'When You Wish Upon A Weinstein' was even cancelled due to its potential offensiveness. The themes are, correspondingly, much more adult, thus restricting the potential audience base and number of viable television slots, which perhaps explains the show's failure to emulate the commercial success of The Simpsons or even Futurama.

Aside from Peter Griffin, one of the best characters is Stewie, the psychotic baby boy. Possessing an aristocratic accent, an ambition to rule the world and kill his mother, Stewie is one of the more complex and amusing infant faces on television - certainly a step up from the tacit Maggie Simpson. Throwing in a possible homosexual tendency for the youngster adds a further dilemma to his malevolent life.

Meanwhile, Brian, the talking sarcastic dog, is also one of the show's treats, often serving as the voice of reason amongst all of the craziness. The episode where he inadvertently becomes a pornography director is not be missed. Certain supporting characters are also golden, such as Glen Quagmire, a sex maniac extraordinaire, and Cleveland, the show's deliberate 'token black guy'.

In sum, Family Guy is what The Simpsons would be like if it were aired after 9pm - the non-stop risqué humour is brilliant and any fan of Matt Groening's equally excellent show should find themselves incredibly amused by the exploits of the Griffin household. Fans, both casual and serious alike, will find this bumper box set a very thrifty investment and a treasured purchase.

Video

Family Guy looks very pristine on DVD thanks to bright images, rich colours and excellent black levels. The lack of any print damage or dirt is also very pleasing, while details, both in the foreground and background, are distinct thanks to competent sharpness.

The only complaint is that minor instances of unwanted aliasing crop up a few times per episode. To be fair, however, this tends to be the Achilles heel of most animation on DVD and is not a fault unique to the Family Guy titles.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround presentation is more than adequate due to the TV origins of the content. The matrixed rear channel is predominantly reserved for musical interludes in between scenes, while the front channels serve up the witty dialogue with perfect clarity.

Upgrading to Dolby Digital 5.1 would have probably offered little in the way of an improved experience and, when considering the number of episodes squeezed onto each DVD, would have probably required excessive sacrifices in video quality.

Extras

All of the supplements for this 9-disc title are tucked away on the final two DVDs of the set - while the collection of extras never seems particularly staggering in terms of its breadth and depth, there is more than enough material for fans to trawl through.

The most appealing items are undoubtledly the 14 audio commentaries that cover selected instalments from all three seasons. Recorded by key off-camera people, including (of course) Seth MacFarlane, these excellent tracks are both hilarious and informative. One of the most amusing commentaries is for the 'offensive' unaired episode, 'When You Wish Upon A Weinstein' - quite a lot of frank criticism is surprisingly aimed at Fox for pulling the plug on this episode.

No less than 28 deleted scene animatics are also spread across the two bonus discs. Totalling up to 17 minutes, these are crude animatics of scenes that were dropped from various episodes at a fairly early stage in the production process. The addition of audio commentary for these snippets would have, however, increased the worth of this cut material even further.

The string of featurettes starts off with the 4 minute promotional piece entitled 'Behind The Scenes', which was basically an extended advert designed to promote the show in the States during its infancy. The inclusion of a few interviews with Seth MacFarlane and others makes this short item worth a glance but its brevity ultimately prevents this featurette from being little more than empty.

The 'Pilot Pitch: Family Guy' featurette is actually the 7 minute pilot that Seth MacFarlane created in order to sell his original concept. The animation and characters were not fully perfected at this stage but the intended style of Family Guy is clearly visible.

Meanwhile, the 'Uncensored' featurette takes a 7 minute look at the show's (in)famous rudeness. Seth MacFarlane discusses the unaired 'When You Wish Upon A Weinstein' episode and his relationship with the censors - classic coarse clips from Peter and the gang are interspersed throughout.

Running for approximately 17 minutes, the 'Series Overview' featurette is a satisfying look back at Family Guy's conception, featuring information on the pilot episode, characters and casting. It's a shame that the other featurettes weren't as least as long and detailed as this one. Finally, the extras close with 7 episode promos, totalling approximately 2 minutes of further viewing.

Overall, the lack of lengthier featurettes is slightly disappointing, but the 14 excellent audio commentaries save the box set, adding much value to the purchase set for fans.

Feature 9/10
Video 8/10
Audio 7/10
Extras7/10

Overall 8/10

DVD Bulletin

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