A long time ago, on a network far far away from its current iteration, Family Guy was really funny. The show in the early years held its own even against the superior The Simpsons. There was just nothing quite like Family Guy in those years.
Until there was way too much that was just like it. Seth MacFarlane shows started showing up everywhere all over Fox, and with each new show Family Guy seemed to get less funny, less original. I thought it bottomed out with Dads. But we’ll see. His fifth Fox television show approaches.
Seth MacFarlane-unstoppable show-maker and Shatner-esque crooner-has (another) animated television show debuting next season. This one, called Bordertown, is set in a US town on the Mexico border and will tell the story of two neighboring men: Bud, an American border patrol agent “who feels threatened by the cultural changes that have transformed his neighborhood,” and Ernesto, “an industrious Mexican immigrant and father of four.”
Blatant, misfiring racial humor has long been a staple of the MacFarlane trade, an investment of which it seems Fox cannot get enough. We see no reason to assume Mr. MacFarlane will not give US-Mexican cultural relations all the respect the issue deserves in Bordertown.*
Maybe Bordertown will be a rejuvenation of the MacFarlane model. Cleveland Show has been cancelled, and American Dad is moving from Fox to TBS. Dads is a total train-wreck, and Family Guy is a shell of its former self.
Whatever happens, let’s hope that the network chief is not once again called upon to beg audiences to patiently endure racism, sexism, and terrible terrible jokes, which are apparently a part of being included in this “next generation of comedy writers.”
*ha.
