Family Guy

I can't get the theme out of my head: "Bad boys, bad boys ... whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys, bad boys..."

Fox kicks off its second day of the press tour with a look at Cops, which is turning 20 years old. That's a lot of torn, white tank tops and name-calling, isn't it?

After a historical look back at the real-life crime show that was ahead of its time, when you think about the amount of reality TV that's out there today, Fox will present the rest of its lineup. Bonus: a table read of the 100th episode of Family Guy!

In a press release sent out today, FOX revealed the premiere dates of both its returning shows and five new additions. Most returning series are back in their old timeslots. However, a lot are paired with a different series than they were during the 2006-2007 season.

Note that this schedule only lists shows beginning in September.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has been given the greenlight from George Lucas to do his own take on Star Wars, using the characters from Family Guy. The Star Wars "spoof" will open next season, but MacFarlane previewed some of the episode for the Star Wars fans at last month's convention.

The clip is a whopping ten minutes long (the episode will be one hour) and the very beginning of it either borrows a joke from or gives a nod to Spaceballs, with a bumper sticker on the back of Darth Vader's ship. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to hear all of the jokes over the audience, but what you can hear is pretty funny. It looks well thought-out, like something MacFarlane has been thinking about doing for a long time.

Video is after the jump:

You may recall that Carol Burnett filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox Television for using her "charwoman" character in the "Peterotica" episode of Family Guy. A parodic version of the animated cleaning woman from The Carol Burnett Show appeared in the first few seconds of the episode as a cleaning lady at a porn shop. You can watch the clip here.

Burnett claims the character was used without her permission, along with a snippet of the music from The Carol Burnett Show.

It hasn't even been a week since Family Guy wrapped for the season, but already there's buzz about next season's premiere. The cartoon has received George Lucas' blessing to spoof Star Wars. The episode will be an hour-long and use the Family Guy characters to recreate Star Wars. So, Peter Griffin will be Han Solo, Lois will be Leia, Stewie will be Darth Vader, Brian will be Chewbacca, Chris will be Luke. Etc, etc.

This is interesting because we're already going to see a Star Wars spoof from Robot Chicken next month, which not only has Lucas' blessing but also his cooperation. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane often voices characters on Robot Chicken and Seth Green produces Robot Chicken but also voices 'Chris' on Family Guy. Not sure if this all came together by coincidence or what.

MacFarlane will premiere some of the Family Guy/Star Wars spoof at this weekend's Star Wars convention in LA.

(S05E18) And so ends a short, inconsistent, Family Guy season. I don't know if we should chalk it up to Seth MacFarlane being spread too thin with American Dad and The Winner to watch over, or just the show coming up on 100 episodes. Something just wasn't quite right at Family Guy HQ this season though.

This year, FOX is hoping for a stronger fall season with a shorter baseball hiatus. Instead of 26 game nights, FOX is expecting to air only 14 games leading up to and including the World Series. Once again, FOX's January schedule has FOX poised for a win in ratings with non-stop 24 and renewal of American Idol. One schedule item worth noting is The Sarah Connor Chronicles, based on the Terminator movies. Fox chose to hold it until mid-season because they want a strong female audience, which is something they get when American Idol returns.

In: 'Til Death, House, Bones, The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, American Dad, America's Most Wanted, Cops, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, American Idol, 24, Prison Break,

New: K-Ville, New Amsterdam, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Back to You, Return of Jezebel James, Rules for Starting Over, Kitchen Nightmares, Canterbury's Law, Nashville

Out: The Winner, Standoff, Drive, The War at Home, The O.C., Justice, Happy Hour, The Rich List, Vanished, The Wedding Bells, The Loop

Moving: 'Til Death, Bones (spring)

(S05E17) As I got into this episode, two things occurred to me. First, since next week is the season finale, when did they decide to cut this season to 18 episodes? More importantly for our purposes here though, this episode felt very familiar. It took a minute, but when Lois and Mayor West got to the debate, I remembered what it was. The main story was very similar to the season two episode, "Running Mates."

For years I've been saying that Family Guy was a poor man's The Simpsons. I stopped saying this when it became clear that fans of Family Guy didn't really care one way or the other. I've seen many examples of Family Guy's second rate brand of comedy but now someone has gone that extra step.

A new video has premiered on YouTube that shows specific examples of how Family Guy has repeated exact scenes that were previously used on The Simpsons. I know I'm going to get a load of angry comments about this but I doubt any of them will be able to defend such lazy writing. Sure, I admit that a few of these clips might just be coincidences but a good writer doesn't let that happen. If Family Guy were that hilarious, ground-breaking show that it's fans insist it is, there wouldn't be any similarities at all.

Watch the video and make your own decisions. Video after the jump.

(S05E16) After watching this episode the first thing that came to mind was the scene from the season four episode "Jungle Love" where Stewie traveled across the country to slap Will Ferrell. I'm starting to get the feeling that Seth MacFarlane, or someone at Family Guy central, could use some Griffin family negative reinforcement.

I'm speaking of the chicken fight scene. Well, scene isn't really appropriate. Segment would be more apt I suppose. I'm generally one that enjoys when shows reference back to things they have done in the past. Things like Chris' roommate at Morningwood being the son of James Bottomtooth from "Brian Goes Back To College" are great. But there are only 22 minutes per episode. Taking a quarter of that for the chicken fight is just ridiculous.

(S05E15) After better than a month off, finally a new episode of Family Guy. I'm not sure I understand the thinking behind the scheduling of the show this year, but the list of behaviors from the networks that I don't understand is a long one. So, we'll take what we can get. Whatever the reasoning, it was nice to have the Griffins back with a fresh adventure.

I think I probably came into this one with my expectations set a little high. Those previews that revealed the family packing up and taking a trip put the thought in the back of my mind that this could be one of those classic episodes. It called to mind the season three episode "To Love and Die in Dixie." Unfortunately, now having seen it, it wasn't a classic.

Cool news for Family Guy fans: the series will be going into syndication in 24 of the top 25 markets, including Minneapolis (which probably doesn't mean much to any of you, but I live in Minneapolis).

While I'm not as fanatical about Family Guy as some, I think it's perfect for syndication. It's a series with the kind of light humor that's perfect for playing in the background while you clean your house on a lazy afternoon, and I don't think it'll suffer too much from the obligatory editing that often happens when a program goes into syndication. When a show is as heavy on non sequitur gags as Family Guy, cutting one or two doesn't hurt the overall flow of the episode too much.

So there you go: between airings on FOX, Adult Swim, TBS and now a syndicated run, you'll be able to get your daily allowance of Family Guy. If you can learn to grow your own food inside your house, you'll never have to leave.

Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.

Ah, the friendly neighborhood drinking hole. In one way or another, they're there to give you that much needed morning/evening buzz before/after work or school. In what order you visit them is up to you. We've seen our fair share of these booze and caffeine shoppes on TV throughout the years, and here's my pick for the top 18 -- why settle for just ten?

1) Cheers (Cheers) -- Let's get right down to it and start with the obvious number one choice before we move on. I'm not going to insult you with dragging you on to the end to see what is very obviously the most famous of all TV bars. And since I'm from the area, I have no business not making this number one.

(S05E14) The up and down season of Family Guy continues, and I thought this one was a bit of a valley, rather than a peak. It had its moments, to be sure, but as a whole, it was somewhat lacking. Peter summed up my feelings for this episode pretty well with his quote after seeing the opening to Maude, "That was an ordeal."

That bit is a good example of what was wrong with this installment. Aside from the fact that it was a reference to a show that you have to be 40 years old, or a tv nutter, to get, it just wasn't funny. And no matter how long the song went on, it was never going to be funny. I found myself in much the same situation while watching tonight. I was just sitting and watching, waiting for it to get funny.

This isn't a very good day for companies under the Fox banner. First Zsa Zsa's husband, and now this.

Veteran comedienne Carol Burnett is suing Twentieth-Century Fox because they used her animated "charwoman" character (the cleaning lady with the mop and bucket from The Carol Burnett Show) in an April, 2006 episode without her permission. She's asking for $2 million.

I think I have to start taking law classes or something, if these celebrity lawsuits keep coming at this pace. I think I remember this episode. It showed the charwoman as the maid at a porn shop. If the show can be sued for pop culture references like this, the lawsuits will never end, since the show has about 20 of them in every episode, and some aren't too flattering.

[via TV Tattle]