Today is the day that I agree with Sarah Palin on something. Family Guy is an un-funny piece of crap.
13 thoughts on “Mark today on your calendars, folks”
Jazz
As this blog’s member of Andrew Sullivan’s Vast Whatever-Wing-He-Is Conspiracy to Topple all things Palin, and also as someone who generally likes Family Guy, I feel compelled to point out that….I agree with David’s assessment.
I’ve occasionally wondered, probably today more than ever, how shows like Family Guy or South Park, which make their living on the edge of “tasteless-funny” and “tasteless-offensive”, maintain control to prevent them from veering over that line. The latest Family Guy makes it seem like there is no control. Maybe that’s part of the magic.
OTOH, I understand that MacFarlane makes an obscene amount of money for his three shows on Fox. Perhaps in this time of job insecurity, he could hire a consultant or two to weigh in on that line between funny and offensive. I’d be happy to give it a try, if they didn’t make me quit my day job….
Jazz
Perhaps this is a good place to add that, while I can obviously get pretty fired up about all things Palin, I also have quite a bit of regret regarding much of what I’ve written about her fifth kid’s birth. Not because I believe any official narrative in that regard; I don’t. Not because I feel sorry for her; Palin is making too much money off this circus to sympathize with her for the arrows that come with the laurels.
Look, I think its fairly likely that, 15 years or so from now, when the dislocating threat of the articulate black man President has receded, replaced by a comfortably dipshitted, chickenshitted, frat-boy-ish loser Bill Clinton/George W. Bush type, Palin will have no further role in American life.
Trig will be in his teens, and considering his parents’ resources, there’s a good chance he will be fairly high-functioning. He will probably be able to read; when we worked with high-functioning elementary students with Down Syndrome, some of them had standard IQ scores above 70, the cutoff for avoiding the official designation “retarded”, and all of them were within a grade or two of their peers as readers. Think “Corky” from Life Goes On.
So Trig will almost certainly be aware of his situation, aware that he was an accessory of his mother’s during her political career, and he may also feel self-conscious that he was an ineffective accessory depending on how/if her career implodes. Perhaps he will also notice that he seems to resemble Uncle Joe more than Dad.
It will be a simple matter for him, then, to search the internet to find out more about these questions. It is terrible to imagine him Googling Andrew Sullivan posts at that time; its sickening to think that one of his searches might, by long random chance, land on something I’ve written here. If so, I would hope it is this one, in which I emphasize that I wish him nothing but the best in his life, and that sometimes fools like me write hotheaded, unthinking things when we get hepped-up with panic over possible Presidencies. Could be any of several Presidencies I’d worry about, frankly. But only one would concern that boy.
gahrie
I wonder who will feel worse when reading about their early life…Trig Palin or Quinn Hunter ?
The end of the linked article mentions Fox Broadcasting being owned by the same company as Fox News and not commenting on Sarah Palin’s response. Seems to me that pulls Fox News into the implication that Fox/News Corps. in general is trying to ignore this, but I heard about this thing & saw the clip watching O’Reilly & Hannity today. Silly.
Related, it’s interesting to me how some people (not talking about the folks commenting in this thread, I’m remarking on overheard chatter both in real life & on tv) can totally fail to understand that most parents get really pissed when you attack their kids.
Not as related to this thread, but throwing it in. For other reasons I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Down syndrome the last couple days, and haven’t run across “Tri-g” anywhere. Tri-21 is common enough, and T21 is how it showed up on the stuff the doc was showing us yesterday. That’s not to say it isn’t anywhere, just that it doesn’t seem to be all that common.
Doc
Family Guy isn’t ALWAYS completely worthless. You’d have to do me up Clockwork Orange style to get me to watch the show, but the Road to Rhode Island number is brilliant. Absolutely spot-on. Also, available on Youtube, so you don’t have to watch whatever was on either side.
Alasdair
Keri – it’s good to see another rational commenter joining us here …
The Sullivan-started “Tri-G” has taken on an astroturfed life of its own … you can find tens of thousands of entries via Google, and yet somehow none of ’em seem to go back bveyond this year … amazing how that works, for something that is supposed to be a ‘medically-common’ abbreviation for Trisomy G …
You’ll find the topic mentioned in this very blog, where those of us that challenge the validity of the assertion have yet to be able to persuade the champions of the assertion to provide any links to any reputable medical source supporting the assertion …
By comparison, when you Google “+BAT +adipose +1964”, you can find that it shows articles going back to 1964, showing that BAT is indeed a commonly-used medical abbreviation for “brown adipose tissue” …
The regulars in here who enjoy Palin Derangement Syndrome are still convinced that Governor Palin chose the name for her child based upon Trisomy G … and they and the rest of the VLIE (the Vast Leftwing Incestuous Echochamber) proudly echo Sullivan’s unsupported assertions on the subject amongst themselves …
Jazz
FWIW, Alasdair, here’s the WebMD summary of Down Syndrome. Note the four synonyms for the condition at the top of the page. I agree with you that it is difficult to ascertain the frequency of Tri-G by looking on google, given the Sullivan kerfuffle.
However, to the extent that Keri is right that WebMD’s third synonym (Trisomy 21) is frequently shortened to Tri-21, it seems hard to believe your contention that WebMD’s fourth synonym (Trisomy G) is never shortened to Tri-G.
But anyway, who cares. None of this stuff matters, except on the infinitesimal chance that Trig finds this some day. Even at infinitesimal, such a chance is too great. Thus I’m finished with this topic.
Yeah, well, I was obviously named after a lotion bottle. Not as bad as a chromosomal disorder, but ya know. Whatcha gonna do? Not so bad as poor Dot Com, who lived 40 years or whatever after her marriage before the internet showed up and made her name became a joke.
David K.Post author
Jazz, the difference I see between Family Guy and South Park, both of which I think have crossed the line on a number of occasions, is that South Park is actually smart and intelligent (although beligerantly offensive) in its social satire and commentary. Family guy? Not even close, its mass market chocolate, good enough to make you money and sell to lots of un-discerning consumers, but when compared to the good stuff? Crap, complete and utter crap, with allt he good parts filled with tasteless, cheap fillers.
Alasdair
Jazz and keri – there is indeed an advantage to a name like mine … you ex-colonials have a very hard time pronouncing it correctly, and a terrible time spelling it correctly, but, as yet, it hasn’t become something commercial … (grin) …
As for the “never shortened” part, as far as I can tell, I haven’t said it is “never shortened” to tri-g … I have said that, prior to Sully sullying his own fading reputation further, *I* have not been able to find the shortened tri-g referenced “frequently” … in Myth-Busters terms, that qualifies as “Busted!” …
Alasdair
Ack – Keri (not keri) – I apologise …
Doc
Seriously. Compare Road to Rhode Island with Road to Morocco.
Overall, Family Guy blows goats, but that’s brilliant.
Jazz
I was such a non-fan of Family Guy until about three years ago, when our family welcomed a daughter to join my wife, myself and our funny mutt. Since then, the dog and the kid have become best friends and confidants, in part because the kid is the dog’s favorite pusher of good junk food, and they spend their day on about the same level. I swear they’re scheming. More complex by the day.
This is the insidious charm of Family Guy; its really Stewie and Brian’s show, and the rest of it is just occasional cultural references. I’ve never sat through an episode of American Dad or the Cleveland Show, but I adore Stewie and Brian. I guess what you like always sort of depends.
As this blog’s member of Andrew Sullivan’s Vast Whatever-Wing-He-Is Conspiracy to Topple all things Palin, and also as someone who generally likes Family Guy, I feel compelled to point out that….I agree with David’s assessment.
I’ve occasionally wondered, probably today more than ever, how shows like Family Guy or South Park, which make their living on the edge of “tasteless-funny” and “tasteless-offensive”, maintain control to prevent them from veering over that line. The latest Family Guy makes it seem like there is no control. Maybe that’s part of the magic.
OTOH, I understand that MacFarlane makes an obscene amount of money for his three shows on Fox. Perhaps in this time of job insecurity, he could hire a consultant or two to weigh in on that line between funny and offensive. I’d be happy to give it a try, if they didn’t make me quit my day job….
Perhaps this is a good place to add that, while I can obviously get pretty fired up about all things Palin, I also have quite a bit of regret regarding much of what I’ve written about her fifth kid’s birth. Not because I believe any official narrative in that regard; I don’t. Not because I feel sorry for her; Palin is making too much money off this circus to sympathize with her for the arrows that come with the laurels.
Look, I think its fairly likely that, 15 years or so from now, when the dislocating threat of the articulate black man President has receded, replaced by a comfortably dipshitted, chickenshitted, frat-boy-ish loser Bill Clinton/George W. Bush type, Palin will have no further role in American life.
Trig will be in his teens, and considering his parents’ resources, there’s a good chance he will be fairly high-functioning. He will probably be able to read; when we worked with high-functioning elementary students with Down Syndrome, some of them had standard IQ scores above 70, the cutoff for avoiding the official designation “retarded”, and all of them were within a grade or two of their peers as readers. Think “Corky” from Life Goes On.
So Trig will almost certainly be aware of his situation, aware that he was an accessory of his mother’s during her political career, and he may also feel self-conscious that he was an ineffective accessory depending on how/if her career implodes. Perhaps he will also notice that he seems to resemble Uncle Joe more than Dad.
It will be a simple matter for him, then, to search the internet to find out more about these questions. It is terrible to imagine him Googling Andrew Sullivan posts at that time; its sickening to think that one of his searches might, by long random chance, land on something I’ve written here. If so, I would hope it is this one, in which I emphasize that I wish him nothing but the best in his life, and that sometimes fools like me write hotheaded, unthinking things when we get hepped-up with panic over possible Presidencies. Could be any of several Presidencies I’d worry about, frankly. But only one would concern that boy.
I wonder who will feel worse when reading about their early life…Trig Palin or Quinn Hunter ?
The end of the linked article mentions Fox Broadcasting being owned by the same company as Fox News and not commenting on Sarah Palin’s response. Seems to me that pulls Fox News into the implication that Fox/News Corps. in general is trying to ignore this, but I heard about this thing & saw the clip watching O’Reilly & Hannity today. Silly.
Related, it’s interesting to me how some people (not talking about the folks commenting in this thread, I’m remarking on overheard chatter both in real life & on tv) can totally fail to understand that most parents get really pissed when you attack their kids.
Not as related to this thread, but throwing it in. For other reasons I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Down syndrome the last couple days, and haven’t run across “Tri-g” anywhere. Tri-21 is common enough, and T21 is how it showed up on the stuff the doc was showing us yesterday. That’s not to say it isn’t anywhere, just that it doesn’t seem to be all that common.
Family Guy isn’t ALWAYS completely worthless. You’d have to do me up Clockwork Orange style to get me to watch the show, but the Road to Rhode Island number is brilliant. Absolutely spot-on. Also, available on Youtube, so you don’t have to watch whatever was on either side.
Keri – it’s good to see another rational commenter joining us here …
The Sullivan-started “Tri-G” has taken on an astroturfed life of its own … you can find tens of thousands of entries via Google, and yet somehow none of ’em seem to go back bveyond this year … amazing how that works, for something that is supposed to be a ‘medically-common’ abbreviation for Trisomy G …
You’ll find the topic mentioned in this very blog, where those of us that challenge the validity of the assertion have yet to be able to persuade the champions of the assertion to provide any links to any reputable medical source supporting the assertion …
By comparison, when you Google “+BAT +adipose +1964”, you can find that it shows articles going back to 1964, showing that BAT is indeed a commonly-used medical abbreviation for “brown adipose tissue” …
The regulars in here who enjoy Palin Derangement Syndrome are still convinced that Governor Palin chose the name for her child based upon Trisomy G … and they and the rest of the VLIE (the Vast Leftwing Incestuous Echochamber) proudly echo Sullivan’s unsupported assertions on the subject amongst themselves …
FWIW, Alasdair, here’s the WebMD summary of Down Syndrome. Note the four synonyms for the condition at the top of the page. I agree with you that it is difficult to ascertain the frequency of Tri-G by looking on google, given the Sullivan kerfuffle.
However, to the extent that Keri is right that WebMD’s third synonym (Trisomy 21) is frequently shortened to Tri-21, it seems hard to believe your contention that WebMD’s fourth synonym (Trisomy G) is never shortened to Tri-G.
But anyway, who cares. None of this stuff matters, except on the infinitesimal chance that Trig finds this some day. Even at infinitesimal, such a chance is too great. Thus I’m finished with this topic.
Yeah, well, I was obviously named after a lotion bottle. Not as bad as a chromosomal disorder, but ya know. Whatcha gonna do? Not so bad as poor Dot Com, who lived 40 years or whatever after her marriage before the internet showed up and made her name became a joke.
Jazz, the difference I see between Family Guy and South Park, both of which I think have crossed the line on a number of occasions, is that South Park is actually smart and intelligent (although beligerantly offensive) in its social satire and commentary. Family guy? Not even close, its mass market chocolate, good enough to make you money and sell to lots of un-discerning consumers, but when compared to the good stuff? Crap, complete and utter crap, with allt he good parts filled with tasteless, cheap fillers.
Jazz and keri – there is indeed an advantage to a name like mine … you ex-colonials have a very hard time pronouncing it correctly, and a terrible time spelling it correctly, but, as yet, it hasn’t become something commercial … (grin) …
As for the “never shortened” part, as far as I can tell, I haven’t said it is “never shortened” to tri-g … I have said that, prior to Sully sullying his own fading reputation further, *I* have not been able to find the shortened tri-g referenced “frequently” … in Myth-Busters terms, that qualifies as “Busted!” …
Ack – Keri (not keri) – I apologise …
Seriously. Compare Road to Rhode Island with Road to Morocco.
Overall, Family Guy blows goats, but that’s brilliant.
I was such a non-fan of Family Guy until about three years ago, when our family welcomed a daughter to join my wife, myself and our funny mutt. Since then, the dog and the kid have become best friends and confidants, in part because the kid is the dog’s favorite pusher of good junk food, and they spend their day on about the same level. I swear they’re scheming. More complex by the day.
This is the insidious charm of Family Guy; its really Stewie and Brian’s show, and the rest of it is just occasional cultural references. I’ve never sat through an episode of American Dad or the Cleveland Show, but I adore Stewie and Brian. I guess what you like always sort of depends.