Can I Divorce Seth MacFarlane?

So, Family Guy isn't funny anymore.

There. I said it.

I watched Family Guy recently and I didn't laugh: not even once. In their third and final installment of the Star Wars trilogy, "It's a Trap!," the cast is thoroughly tired of their own antics and say with a sigh, "Let's just get through this." Actually, you know what? Let's just stop right here.

Once upon a time, my television world would rise and set around this show and I used it as the benchmark for everything that was deemed laughable and pleasurable in the world of television. Maybe this is why I now rely solely on Netflix and don't even have the option of watching network television or cable in my home.

I even wrote my undergraduate thesis about how it related to Religion. For hours I painstakingly analyzed every line of the (then) three seasons of this show, looking for allusions to Religion (or more specifically...Christianity). I laughed out loud (or perhaps I lol'd) all along the way. Now I feel as though this show is a hollow shell of a Popular Culture phenomenon.

I blame Seth MacFarlane saturation. If I have to hear him sing one more fucking time, I might lose control. Not only does he insist on forcing his buffoonery into his own productions (I guess he doesn't sing the opening to The Cleveland Show, but no one fucking watches that, anyway), but he also managed to weasel his way into singing the opening credits for Futurama's "Into The Wild Green Yonder," a movie that I actually enjoyed. Imagine if a serious crooner had sung the opening credits for this film as an actual tribute to old Las Vegas, rather than this blowhard sickening us with another feeble attempt to prove to the world that he should've been an actor, writer AND a musician (that didn't work for Kevin Bacon, now did it?)

I also blame this show's inability to keep things intelligent. In the beginning, this show was able to finesse a lot of really smart and clever jokes right alongside the bawdy bathroom humor that pandered to the vast majority of American idiots. This show earned its spot as the first television show that was actually more popular after its cancellation. It earned the right to be brought back for more seasons. But now...I'm all set. Thanks.

The writing has declined into a hastily slapped-together montage of fat moron jokes and cut-aways to other people's popular culture creations. Really? They're making jokes about Peter actually being legally retarded and married to a "hot" Protestant millionaire blue-blood. In fact, they're making constant jokes about it. Then, they want to write about The Griffin's sex life and think that I'm even remotely entertained by the notion of a retarded man having sex. Really? Meh.

When I set out to write a bit about this show's decline, I found dozens of articles, message board posts and general sass about how this show has gone from an amazing example of postmodern satire, to the weekly lovechild of Beavis and Butthead and Animal House.

It's my own fault, as Dustin pointed out to me in an earlier email. I watch way too much BBC.