Once again, the irreverent animated comedy about a so-called average guy and his dysfunctional family has released yet another volume of 22 episodes. While it’s titled as “Volume Twelve,” it actually contains all of Season Eleven’s episodes.
It’s unheard of today for a show that was cancelled after the third season ever returning to television, let alone hit 11 seasons and surpass 200 episodes. The 200th episode is one of those featured in this collection, and you might even miss it if you weren’t looking for it since the episodes run in date of airing making it the fourth episode of the season. The title of the episode is “Yug Ylimaf” or “Family Guy” spelled backwards, which makes perfect sense once you understand the premise.
Brian, the family dog, has been having trouble picking up women until he finds a surefire way to get them to come home with him. He tells them that he has a time machine and will take them for a ride in it. The only problem is that he really doesn’t have a time machine. It’s Stewie’s time machine and he ends up having to sneak into it once he falls asleep. After several rendezvous, he realizes that the time machine has an odometer on it much like a car that shows how many years he’s travelled. So in order to fix it he does what he would do with a car, he tries to turn the dial back. But alas, a time machine is not a car and by turning the dial backwards he inverts the time flow and time begins to run backwards. With the help of Stewie they must somehow repair the machine and reset time before they both become unborn.
Some of the more classic episodes are paid tribute to as you get to watch them in reverse. And yes, the Ipecac scene is even that much more disgusting when shown backwards. Accompanying this episode is a featurette entitled “200 Episodes Later,” which is in the form of cast and crew interviews as they discuss the entire series, and a cast table read that is fun to watch and is better than some of the other previous cast readings that have been included on previous volumes.
Another episode that deserves mention is “Turban Cowboy.” The reason this episode is mentioned is more because of the timing of its airing. As the title suggests it’s about Muslims, and Peter falling into a terrorist sleeper cell. While the basic story isn’t that outrageous, the fact that there is a cutaway gag where Peter wins the Boston Marathon by driving his car through and over the runners mowing down anyone in his path, caused a lot of outrage because it was coincidentally released just before the Boston Marathon bombing.
The episode “Roads to Vegas” is the most entertaining and original episode as it puts a twist on the buddy episodes that feature Stewie and Brian in their various adventures. Instead of just having them take a trip to Vegas, they decided to use a teleportation device to instantly transport themselves instead of having to spend time on an airplane. While the teleportation device works, it has an unforeseen side effect and splits them into two. For the rest of the episode you are watching two episodes nearly simultaneously as the Stewie and Brian who were teleported have the greatest time ever and the Stewie and Brian who were not have the worst time ever.
The DVD set contains three discs. Many of the episodes have deleted scenes and audio commentary. The deleted scenes are worth watching as they are stand-alone jokes and would have worked fine had they been inserted directly into the episodes. While most people are familiar with the adult comedy that permeates every episode, on the DVD the curse words are not bleeped and not family friendly.
By now most people have heard of Family Guy and have probably made up their minds on whether or not they like the show. But if you already know you like the show then this release is certainly worth picking up. It’s an entire season of the show, the comedy is as good as ever, they keep pushing the envelope, and most importantly, it’ll make you laugh.
