All The Tropes

Dethroning Moment of Suck (Darth Wiki)/Western Animation/Family Guy: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Dethroning Moment of Suck (Darth Wiki)/Western Animation/Family Guy (view source)

Revision as of 18:07, 10 April 2017

80 bytes removed ,  7 years ago
update links
VisualWikitext
m (clean up, replaced: [[The Simpsons| → [[The Simpsons (animation)|)
(update links)
Line 21:
* In ''Don't Make Me Over'', [[Throw the Dog a Bone|the writers]] [[Yank the Dog's Chain|finally]] [[Hope Spot|seemed to give]] [[Chew Toy|Meg]] the love she deserved. So much for that. They could have give her a little more respect since that episode, but no, She had to go back to [[The Unfavorite|her]][[The Woobie|se]][[Broken Bird|lf]] by the end. Because [[Status Quo Is God]]. And before you say "but that episode had [[An Aesop]] with [[Be Yourself]]!" remember that it becomes a [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]] if this is just a lame excuse to [[Butt Monkey|put the character through shit]].
* "Patriot Games"—the home of the infamous "Where's my money?" and "Shipoopi" scenes. The former scene was just unnecessary violence and is uncomfortable to watch. The sheer unnecessary-ness of the latter scene was parodied five years later in a clip show, when Stewie cringes at the fact that they have to play "Shipoopi" again.
** Don't have a problem with something being uncomfortable to watch, but musical numbers are usually the DEW line for a show having [[Jump the Shark|jumped the shark]]. Mostly averted in ''Family Guy'''s case, as they're there due to MacFarlane's fanhood, but "Shipoopi" was some of the most [[Overly Long Gag|overlong, unfunny, obnoxious filler]] I've seen, and it was compounded by [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)|giving the London Sillynannies a musical number of their own]]. Its only funny moment was showing John Madden dancing along in the broadcast booth. IIRC, that episode was tied in with FOX's Super Bowl broadcast that particular season. Talk about putting your worst foot forward.
** In the episode with the infamous Shipoopi scene (while being pretty horrendous, is not the DMOS), Lois tells Peter that, if he got handicapped, she would just drop him. [[Sarcasm Mode|Y'know, because that's what love is all about!]]
* "You May Now Kiss the... Uh... Guy Who Receives". This episode was basically the start of the whole "Brian is the [[Author Avatar]] thing." Basically, Brian's cousin comes to visit and brings a Filipino boyfriend. They say that they are getting married and Lois is the only one not impressed by it. Mayor West then bans Gay Marriage in order to get around him building a solid gold statue of the Kellogg's cereal mascot Dig 'Em. Brian, in a complete wreckage of anything canon before it, automatically goes to try to help his cousin, trying to get signatures to repeal it. He gets the signatures and West disregards the signatures. In yet another wreckage of character, Brian holds West at gunpoint and takes him hostage. It is only then that Lois decides to go along with it and accept gay marriage. Brian immediately, after hearing Lois tell him to stop, ends up stopping... to which West tears up the gay marriage ban. So, a person (well, dog) holds you up at gunpoint unless you sign some idiotic paper repealing a gay marriage ban, so you... help him? Instead of arresting him? The episode ends on the gay marriage itself. The subplot wasn't much better at bashing Republicans, as Chris joins a Young Republicans group and burns Brian's original petition, and then [[What Happened to the Mouse?|it's never resolved.]]
Line 70:
* FOX-y Lady. The ending where they just stop trying. Seriously, she revealed that the icon of the right wing was a fraud. Even if she also revealed the icon of the left was too, that'd still be a pretty decent reason for Fox News to fire her.
* The episode "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven", which can basically be described as an anti-theist [[Chick Tract]], was the most jarring Dethroning Moment of Suck I have ever seen. There were so many Chick parallels; the old man in the sky "disproof" was similar to anti-evolutionist "I've never seen a monkey give birth to a human" sentiment, and after telling Meg her very existence proves no benevolent force exists, Brian tells her the physical universe is better than God, mirroring Chick tracts ending with "God is going to send you and everyone you know to hell for existing (one minute later) God loves you so much." I watched most of ''[[Moral Orel]]'' without getting offended (meaning I didn't see all of it, not that any of it offended me), so that should give some scope on how ridiculously hateful the episode was.
** The horrific icing on the moldy, smelly cake to the above is that the same episode had a wonderfully silly sub-plot featuring Stewie's antics with the cast of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]''. So not only was the main plot godawful (no pun etc), but they had an excellent opportunity for an episode of hilarious TNG gags that the audience would have loved, [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|but they just wasted it]].
*** If that isn't enough to get your blood-boiling, here's the kicker: Apparently the sub-story, ''not'' the atheism/Christianity "debate", was the one to be advertised on commercials, meaning FOX and/or the writers of the show, intentionally or otherwise, lured viewers with a somewhat interesting story and switched it with a [[Straw Man]] argument on religion. As [[Confused Matthew]] once said, "Surprise! You're being preached at!"
** The really worst part about it though, is that they could have given Brian an actual reason to be an atheist. But no, we get the Hubble Telescope and man in the clouds debunk. Seriously? That's the only reason to be an Atheist? This atheist troper thinks the episode is more insulting to Atheists than it is to Theists. The worst part though, was that even though they already threw canon out the window just to put this episode in, they all the sudden want to retain the fact that Brian is an atheist (and of "Jerome Is The New Black", itself a DMoS, the fact that Quagmire hates Brian irrationally).
*** I agree that it's pretty demeaning to atheists too, but I don't think atheists had it worse. The worst atheists got in this episode was being portrayed as having silly arguments for their beliefs, theists on the other hand were painted as uncontrollably violent psychopaths that needed to burn/lynch everything that opposed their worldview and are so sheeplike that a few seconds of preaching from a theist can flame them into a riot and a few seconds of preaching from an atheist can turn them back in to civilized people. It's hard to argue that atheists had it worse when the episode actively tried to [[Godwin's Law|conflate theists with Nazis]].
** Brian being shunned for his atheism was a bit funny as a [[Take That]] at religious intolerance (although the intent was probably to establish Brian as a [[Sympathetic Sue]]); as was Meg being portrayed as a typical zealous but misguided Christian teen (too bad the [[The Fundamentalist]] stereotype is clearly how ''[[Family Guy]]'''s writers view all Christians). Initially, the episode's overall premise seemed decent, but I lost hope right around the "Worse than Hitler!" bit. Gah, lame. The peak of the episode's awfulness, though, was when Brian tried to explain why Meg's stab at religion was misguided and atheism is more logical. Sweet baby Jebus, worst argument for atheism I've ever heard. A loving God would've created Meg beautiful, and that disproves His existence? Not only did Brian objectify Meg by not for a moment entertaining the thought that her character could be more important than and compensate for her ugliness, but how is it God's fault that Meg is fat? And blaming God for her genetics, too? Fuck, this Christian troper could've come up with a way better argument for atheism. Also, as Grimace noted, the subplot with Stewie meeting the cast from ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' was easily funnier than anything else in the episode. I especially liked Picard's lines. If only they'd scrapped the shitty main plot and stuck with that.
*** I concur. I especially hate the "Worse than Hitler!" chyron. This has to be the worst "Family Guy" episode I have ever seen. I'm a liberal who doesn't go to church and I am literally offended by this. It is offensive to Christians, Atheists, all other religions, and Trekkies combined. At least South Park did better with the "Trapped in the Closet" Scientology episode. This episode sucks! I have actually credited Rowdy C's [http://blip.tv/RowdyReviewer/tv-trash-not-all-dogs-go-to-heaven-5506179 "TV Trash" review] for why I hate this. It really is what this would be like if Jack Chick was an atheist. I could rant about the other argued DMoS instances, but this one is the absolute worse I've seen personally.
** Another awful part of Brian's ending sentiment is that he says "Your mom looks like Lois. Do you think a benevolent God would make you look like Peter instead?" Even though 1) this isn't enough to convert the pavement you're standing on to a different religion, and second, Meg looks a lot more like Lois than Peter anyway. The only real physical similarity between Peter and Meg is Meg's hair color and need for glasses. They basically debunked and dismantled an entire town's religious belief system by playing into a teenage girl's [[Hollywood Homely|informed ugly]] compared to her mother's [[Informed Attractiveness]].
Line 125:
== Season 9 ==
* for me it's "Brian writes a Bestseller"; for one, the week before it aired, it was billed as an episode full of Bill Maher (witch if you have ever seen how funny Seth can be with Bill Maher, you'd be pissed too), but insted the guest star got less then 30 seconds. Bonus: We're supposed to be enraged at Brian because he wrote a pro-religion book that he doesn't believe in, even though he has behaved far worse than that on a regular basis.
* The Halloween episode became proof that [[Character Derailment|the writers have completely forgotten about the characters]]. If [[Enfant Terrible|Stewie from season 1]] got his bag of candy stolen, he would have probably just whipped out his ray gun and incinerated those kids. This Stewie, a.k.a [[Camp Gay|Gay Stewie]], acts completely helpless and goes to Brian for help—and actually considers killing those boys to be too much. The same character who once kidnapped and tortured a seven year old for stealing his bike acts like that over this? [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)|Come the fuck on!]]
** Mo: At first, I was pretty neutral with the Halloween episode due to liking a few parts of the plot of Quagmire being pranked, but that is pretty much ruined by how Meg's subplot ended. To elaborate, She was playing "spin the bottle" at a party and she got into the closet with a guy in an Optimus Prime suit. Normally, I would expect either the guy being ugly or running out screaming, but nope! It was Chris, in the closet with her! That resulted into the most painful scene I had to sit through because it was a blatantly disgusting joke even by the show's own standards.
* The "Guy in a coma" gag from ''Brian Writes a Bestseller''. It wasn't funny, it was overly long, and it was just uncomfortable to watch. I don't even know what the hell they thought they were going for, but neither the premise nor the material was funny and two wrongs do not make a joke. I mean seriously.
Line 134:
** This Troper has a deep loathing of Brian in this episode, namely from him nonchalantly raiding that family's house for food and promptly killing the father and leaving his wife and child to rot. And the ending, where he convinces everyone they only need one gift. Assuming they literally get only ONE from any person it eliminates the "giving" part of the holiday and leaves behind the ugly "receiving" part. This Troper now wants a real life [[Dartboard of Hate]] of Brian.
** Okay, we can all agree that Quagmire chewing out Brian that one time was pretty damn [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|cool]], if not very subtle, but did we really need to see a repeat performance of that crap in ''Road to the North Pole''? We get it, Quagmire hates Brian. But watching him shit on an obviously repentant person who made an honest mistake was just painful and stupid.
* "New Kidney In Town": After Peter drinks a Red Bull replacement concocted with kerosene after Lois got rid of his supply of the real thing, he has kidney failure and has to go on dialysis treatments to stay alive. He skips an appointment one day, and now he's gonna die if they can't find a donor. [[Creator's Pet|Guess who]] offers Peter one of his kidneys. Yes Brian. The episode is such a giant [[Rescued Fromfrom the Scrappy Heap]] attempt it's sickening. Peter, who is one more episode like Family Gay or Family Goy from becoming a [[Complete Monster]] is going to be saved by Brian, who would willing lay down his life to save him. [[Jesus|Hmm, wonder where they got the idea]]? Yep, they tried to make Brian, the worst thing to happen to Atheism since Stalin, into the Jesus of Atheists. Except the Son of [[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal|Athe]] would still be likable! The rest of the episode has the family talking to Brian like his loss (he's a seven year old dog who smokes and drinks by the by) is gonna be like the death of Mother Teresa..and in the end... it doesn't f$$king matter. A hobo dies and the Doctor says, "Oh, we couldn't use your kidneys anyway because you're a dog".
*** This troper stopped watching "Family Guy" some time ago, but to be honest, I'm not a big fan of Mother Teresa (due to her refusal to medicate her patients, allow secular knowledge to reach her patients and fellow nuns, and her habit of [[Kick the Dog|punishing her patients for doing things she didn't like]]), so this didn't really bother me. That being said, I hated this episode; like the above troper said, Brian is one of the worst things to happen to atheists in a long time, and the writers are so desperate to make him likable again that it's painful.
**** Replace Stalin with [[Ayn Rand]] and you can count me in as well. While still thinking that ''Road To The North Pole'' is the worst overall episode, I must say this episode contains the biggest singular DMoS ever in the end, which makes every attempt to save the episode vane, along with turning the doctor into a big [[Jerkass]] after portraying him as sympathetic and professional during the episode.
Line 200:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Dethroning Moment of Suck (Darth Wiki)]]
[[Category:Family Guy]]▼
[[Category:Dethroning Moment]]
[[Category:Dethroning Moment of Suck/Western Animation]]
▲[[Category:Family Guy{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1495843"