If you do not know the name Seth Macfarlane, you probably know his most famous works. The writer, producer, and actor/voice actor is well known for his extraordinarily popular adult cartoon series Family Guy. Although he is well known for his work on animated television series, he has tried his hand and feature length liv-action films as well. Seth was born in Kent, Connecticut, on October 26, 1973. Both of his parents worked in academia; his father was a teacher and his mother was an academic administrator. Seth was very interested in cartoons and animation from a very young age, and would practice drawing cartoons. He even managed to acquire “his first paying job at age nine, when he began publishing his own comic strip in the local Kent newspaper” (bio). After high school, Seth went to study video and animation at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1995, Seth moved to Los Angeles where he worked with Hanna-Barbera productions on some of the popular or nostalgically recalled cartoons of the 90’s. Macfarlane continued to work on him own animation project Life of Larry. FOX became interested in Seth and through them he was able to work on creating a pilot episode for his show. “Despite his limited budget, he managed to convey the overall thrust of the show and to hook studio executives with his edgy humor” (bio). Fox bought Seth’s show, now titled Family Guy in 1998. Although the show was cancelled for a brief jaunt, it saw enough sales and popularity and had enough complaining fans that it was brought back and is still running today. Seth would go on to foray into other television shows briefly, but one of his next notable years was in 2012 when he released his first live-action feature film Ted (2012). Ted was a big success, earning more than $218 million, which perhaps helped secure him the invite to be host of the 2013 Academy Awards.
So what made Seth so funny to so many people? Well, if you have seen an episode of Family Guy you would know that by enlarge the majority of the gags in the show are in reference to something else. Seth’s extensive knowledge of popular media and animation history are rather impressive. For example, there was a skit in family guy that completely recreated one of the earlier blends of cartoon and live action where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry mouse in the 1945 film Anchors Aweigh. Seth redoes this scene in its entirety by simply replacing Jerry Mouse with Stewie Griffon. Another prime example of Seth’s implementation of parody in tandem with his knowledge of animation history is when he recreates part of the famous a-ha – Take On Me music video. The brand of reference related humor and nonstop gags that Seth fuels his comedy with are reflected in a statement he made: "Particularly now, with the current landscape of sitcoms, we're out to make jokes. I think that gets lost in a lot of sitcoms that get caught up in things like story and character development and emotional storytelling. That stuff is important, but at the end of the day, 'job one' in sitcoms is you've got to keep people laughing" (Biography). Seth’s brand of humor definitely reflects the YouTube attention span in many ways, hardly any time goes by between jokes that sometimes are completely unrelated to each other but make sense in the immediate situation. This lets the viewer pay very little attention or entertain much deep thought before they are already laughing at the next gag. So, while good for many cheap laughs, a lot of the comedy Seth employs do not make long lasting impressions as some of the films we watched in this class. However, there is definitely something to be said about this type of comedy. These quick, witty reference types of gags are very indicative of the time either when the writing took place or of the era that they are referencing. As we have learned to look at in this class, the historical contexts and the concerns of the culture are sometimes even more clearly reflected in satirical gag shows like family Guy, if you take the time to think about it. Also, it perhaps is likely to reach a wider audience because of its low user input requirement. As sad to say as it is, sometimes I find it way easier to sit in front of a show like Family Guy, or click through hours of short, funny videos on YouTube, than to commit myself to watching a full length feature, even if it is funny.
Speaking of full length features, and this being a class about comedy films, how does Seth Macfarlane fare in his own attempt at making a feature length comedy. Ted was perhaps the right kind of movie for Seth to make his live-action producer debut since Ted, one of the two protagonists, is completely animated. In fact, the CGI teddy bear is voiced by Macfarlane himself and sounds very reminiscent of Peter Griffin from Family Guy. The comedy in the movie is paced differently than his television sitcoms, but it still holds true to some of his more staple gags making fun of celebrities, referencing popular culture and being rude and sometimes controversial. Although the movie takes more time to build character, it is not by any means a very deep or intellectual comedy. Seth still runs things a bit like his sitcoms with many one off gags and a whole lot more foul language and sexed up jokes, as he has an R rating without the restraints of television. Ted feels very much like a movie that a teenage boy or adolescent adult would write. Although the pacing of the plot feels more like a feature length film, the movie is pretty clearly recognizable as a Macfarlane film.
While Seth managed to see some success with Ted, his more recent film A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), was both a critical and box office failure. It seems people grew tired of the same old Seth in everything he made. Once again a comedy that pulls many of its gags from popular culture references, A Million Ways to Die in the West was Seth MacFarlane’s R rated comedy film that people found not funny. One brutal review describes that “like a byproduct of a man-child allowed to do whatever he wants because it worked last time. A failure on nearly every level, "A Million Ways to Die in the West" almost approaches so-bad-you-need-to-see-it categorization” (rogerebert.com). Fortunately for Seth, he still has his sitcoms.
While seeing varying degrees of success in his career, Seth Macfarlane has worked in comedy for his entire career. He has worked in short format, long format, and various modes of visual entertainment. Although he has his defining brand and style of humor he has been very successful regardless of his few flop features. Perhaps he will go on to create another feature film and learn from his previous mistakes. Or, maybe he will just make another live action homage to his family guy style writing, humorously explained by Matt Stone and Trey Parker in an episode of South Park as being randomly decided by seals picking “idea balls”.
Work Cited
Editors, Biography.com. "Seth MacFarlane." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 04 May
2016. <http://www.biography.com/people/seth-macfarlane-20624525>.
"Seth MacFarlane." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 04 May 2016.
Tallerico, Brian. "A Million Ways to Die in the West Movie Review (2014) | Roger
Ebert." Rogerebert.com. Web. 04 May 2016. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-2014>.
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