Humor
What brand of humor does Family Guy employ?
Family Guy
"Family Guy" uses the filmmaking technique of cutaways, which occur in the majority of "Family Guy" episodes. Emphasis is often placed on gags which make reference to current events and/or modern cultural icons. Early episodes based much of their comedy on Stewie's "super villain" antics, such as his constant plans for total world domination, his evil experiments, plans and inventions to get rid of things he dislikes, and his constant attempts at matricide. As the series progressed, the writers and MacFarlane agreed that his personality and the jokes were starting to feel dated, so they began writing him with a different personality. "Family Guy" often includes self-referential humor. The most common form is jokes about Fox Broadcasting, and occasions where the characters break the fourth wall by addressing the audience. For example, in "North by North Quahog", the first episode that aired after the show's revival, included Peter telling the family that they had been cancelled because Fox had to make room in their schedule for shows like "Dark Angel", "Titus", "Undeclared", "Action", "That '80s Show", "Wonderfalls", "Fastlane", "Andy Richter Controls the Universe", "Skin", "Girls Club", "Cracking Up", "The Pitts", "Firefly", "Get Real", "Freakylinks", "Wanda at Large", "Costello", "The Lone Gunmen", "A Minute with Stan Hooper", "Normal, Ohio", "Pasadena", "Harsh Realm", "Keen Eddie", "The $treet", "The American Embassy", "Cedric the Entertainer Presents", "The Tick", "Luis", and "Greg the Bunny". Lois asks whether there is any hope, to which Peter replies that if all these shows are canceled they might have a chance; the shows were indeed canceled during "Family Guy"s hiatus. The show uses catchphrases, and most of the primary and secondary characters have them. Notable expressions include Quagmire's "Giggity giggity goo", Peter's "Freakin' sweet", and Joe's "Bring it on!" The use of many of these catchphrases declined in later seasons. The episode "Big Man on Hippocampus" mocks catchphrase-based humor: when Peter, who has forgotten everything about his life, is introduced to Meg, he exclaims "D'oh! ", to which Lois replies, "No, Peter, that's not your catchphrase."