Submitted For Your Amusement: The Family Guy, Volume 1

Entertainment Weekly sayz: The Family Guy is what you'd get if you put Hank Hill, Homer Simpson, and Cartmen in a blender/.

I couldn't agree more. If you are into divinely off-beat and decidedly un-Pc humor, this is your baby. Family Guy is an animated series, much like both The Simpsons and King of the Hill before it, with some brazen humor ala South Park. If you like those 3, you will absolutely looove this.

Peter Griffin: Now, I know you're a feminist, and I think that's adorable, but this is grown-up time and I'm the man.

First there's Peter Griffin, the father of Stewie, Meg and Chris... husband to Lois (who baby Stewie wants to kill, err after he takes over the world). Meg is your usual 'normal' teen dealing with an off-the-wall family. Chris is the easy-going barely-a-teen dude with very little ambition. And oh yes, Brian the dog is the most intelligent of the bunch... None of that does this series justice at all... it's hard to describe.

Let's take this set for examples then. Volume one is comprised of Seasons 1 and 2 in their entirety. This is 28 episodes (4 discs) of side splitting, gut busting fun. You can get a list of episodes from anywhere, so I'll highlight my favorites from these two seasons.

First aired on 9/30/99, Holy Crap had me in tears. Now, I do have to tell you that you cannot go by the descriptions on the covers here as they have errors. I suspect that is on purpose. heh. If you copy from those, you will be wrong. For instance, this one says When Peter's Dad is forced to retire, he is hired on at Peter's factory, but the old man quickly creates misery with his autocratic style. Peter's idea for getting him fired again - convince him to kidnap the Pope. Bzzzt! Peter does not convince dad to kidnap the Pope. In fact, Peter kidnaps the Pope in order to try to impress his old grumpy right-wing religious dad and gain favor. Hilarity ensues.

Stewie Griffin: Yes, I rather like this God fellow. He's very theatrical, you know, a pestilence here, a plague there. Omnipotence. Gotta get me some of that.

Part of the attraction to this series is that nobody is above being a target. Series creator Seth MacFarlane slaps Hilary Clinton just as fast and as hard as he slaps George Bush Jr. There is no playing favorites here, everyone and everything is a target from pop culture to gays to blacks to religion to sex to movies... you get the picture.

If you pay attention you will see various short bits here and there referencing things, even if it's just an episode title such as Dammit, Janet! which is obviously a salute to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Then there's ooh I think it was in Wasted Talent that this whole Willy Wonka send-up only it was a beer factory rather than a chocolate factory... priceless.

Now, aside from creating this madness, Seth MacFarlane also does quite a few of the character voices such as Peter Griffin, Brian Griffin, Stewie Griffin, neighbor and womanizer Glen Quagmire, Tom Tucker and any additional voices as needed. Wow. Alex Borstein does the voices of Lois Griffin, Loretta, 'Asian correspondent' Tricia Takanawa and Barbara Pewterschmidt. Mila Kunis, who may recognize as Jackie from That 70s Show does the voice of Meg Griffin to perfection. Then we have Seth Green doing Chris Griffin and Adam West doing himself (the mayor of Quahog). Is that enough talent for ya? Here's more...

Susan Sarandon: I'm Susan Sarandon. Most of you know me as Tim Robbins' mother, but actually I'm his wife!

Almost every episode has some guest cameo for some reason or other and those voices are usually the real deal. A poster of Greg Allman speaks to Peter in Let's Go To The Hop, and Luke Perry shows an incredibly great sense of humor in The Story on Page One, where Peter writes an article for Meg's school paper (using Meg's name) claiming that Perry is gay and then tries to seduce Perry to make it true. Hilarious.

There are very few extras on this set, which is very disappointing. A few of the episodes have commentaries by MacFarlane and various actors, but they aren't as entertaining as the episodes themselves. There is a short Behind-the-scenes on the last disc though that is pretty entertaining, I just wish it were longer. I'm guesstimating about 10-15 minutes tops.

Still, this set is worth every penny of it's pricetag and will provide hours of laughs. There is occasional swearing and sex is always there. It's rated TV-14 but yanno, I don't think I'd stop my kid from watching it.

Whether you're a fan or not, if you have a sense of humor and don't get your panties all bunched up over jokes driving holes in political correctness, then get this one now.