R&R Family Guy: Don't Be a Dickens At Christmas

pole

  • 5/5 Happy Holidays from all of us at FAMILY BOY :) :) :)

    Votes: 2 16.7%

  • 4/5 this episode was the Dickens :) :) :)

    Votes: 6 50.0%

  • 3/5 eh it was ok

    Votes: 2 16.7%

  • 2/5 this episode sucked Dickens!!

    Votes: 1 8.3%

  • 1/5 i got coal in my stocking :'(

    Votes: 1 8.3%
  • Total voters
    12
The Goode Family

The Goode Family

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A selfish Peter loses his Christmas spirit and is visited by ghosts of Christmas past, present and future who take him on a journey around Quahog in the style of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
 
Man, this was terrific. It really goes to show how bad things can get when people take a joke too seriously. Brian was characterized very well in this episode, and some very good points about political correctness were made. Even after he apologized and deleted several of his social media accounts, people didn't forgive him. Brian's tweet was douchey, but is it worth causing this much of a storm over? The third act got really sad, with him living in his pathetic apartment, ending on a really dark note with him eating cereal in front of the TV with the lights out. I was worried the college campus scene was going to be cringey since the one that Simpsons had was godawful. But it wasn't that bad, and I liked the joke with Brian being left by himself as soon as he opens a Twitter account.
The situation depicted in this episode is quite extreme, but satire often works best with exaggerations. There were some other good miscellaneous jokes as well, like Peter going to the Dick's store making obvious jokes, and him suddenly sitting high up in a chair like a baywatch. Brilliant.
Definitely a very interesting and different kind of episode. Best of the season so far.

I really hated Quagmire in this episode however, him screaming "Boo" constantly was annoying as hell. But that's only a minor issue. 9.7/10
 
Stuff I liked
Peter playing School's Out.
"Lincoln. What are we doing?" (the rest of that cutaway sucked though, as did the later callback to this gag)
"The clam's on the other side of town. He went out of his way to do this"
A Very Slow Christmas by Peabo Bryson
Carolers
Too full bath
Christmas with Ollie and Opie's families (never would've figured that those two would have families)
Everyone reacting to Peter's dancing

Stuff I didn't like
Waterson cutaway
"Nothing reminds you more of what you have than watching a grown man poo right through the split in his pants"
Kanye canes
Twas the Night Before Christmas as read by Norm McDonald (that out of nowhere OJ reference was also a huge WTF moment)
Holden's demise
"There's too many Jews in Brazil" (kinda saved by Stewie calling out that remark)
Milf on a shelf
Specifically noting that Robin Williams killed himself (it would've been fine if they'd just said that it was a special issue of People about him and end it there)

Other random thoughts
This was the last time that we'll ever see Angela. And for me, I thought the scene was an OK ending to her character. At least they didn't have her end on a slap to the face homophobic remark like Sinatra Jr.
Weird that they got Kevin Michael Richardson in this episode yet didn't give Junior any lines.
Well, at least they admitted that the episode was short for once in terms of why we have that padded out dance sequence.

As I already said on the general discussion thread, it seems like for one reason or another that I always ended up seeing one new adaptation of A Christmas Carol whether it'd be a new one or a older one I hadn't seen before. But I thought they pulled if off pretty well (minus the stuff I already listed that didn't land). Definitely better than most of their previous Christmas episodes (especially Christmas Guy and The 2000 Year Old Virgin, even if I find most of them to be OK), and a good way to round out one of the show's best years in a long time.

Another 3.5/5 which I'll round up to a 4.

I'll also give my rankings of all the Christmas episodes from best to worst:
Road to the North Pole (preferably the TV version)
Don't Be a Dickens at Christmas
How the Griffin Stole Christmas
The 2000 Year Old Virgin
Christmas Guy
Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas
 
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Family Guy... WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Yeah, this is pretty much what I have to say. Some jokes were good, some were awful and the story was pretty lame. Feel extremely forced for a Christmas episode... but I guess it was worth for the good jokes.
 
not bad. mostly a funny episode with some solid Laffs and i enjoyed the the very slow christmas and carolers running gags. probably the best christmas episode since north pole
 
Enjoyed it. Lots of gags that worked for me (overexcited carolers, ending Chris Farley sketch dancing, seeing Opie and Ollie's Christmas's). Wouldn't mind actually rewatching it if I saw it on TV again in the future. low 4/5
 
Awful. The jokes were very thin. Only Norm MacDonald's bit made me smile.
 
Lot of the jokes were funny. A Christmas Carol has been parodied to death. You'd think Family Guy of all shows would realize you can't do it without being cliché, which seems like something they'd want to avoid.
 
This was very good. Much better than Jesus,Mary and Joseph (I put at the bottom of my list), The 2000 Year Old Virgin and The Christmas Guy. It was a good Dickens parody and I'm glad Patrick Swyaze was the ghost and Peter dancing at the end was funny. I loved Meg with long hair. Noting Robin Williams killed himself was tasteless. Please let him rest in peace! The carolers were hysterical and it looked like they were zombified. What was funnier was when Joe and Quagmire got sucked in. Also funny was too full bath. Nice to see that supporting characters like Ollie and Opie have families and lives. I rank this above the three and another thing I hated was the Norm MacDonald cutaway. I wanted him TO SHUT UP!!!!!! Anyway, I give it a 4. Great Christmas show.
 
Solid enough for a Christmas special doing a story that's been done to death. Decent number of laughs. Only joke I can think of that I didn't like was that stupid stillborn remark that Lois made. 4/5
 
Not too shabby. It's hard to spoof A Christmas Carol with much originality these days, but they didn't do too bad of a job. The "Roadhouse/Ghost" title mash-up joke was probably my favourite, definitely got a laugh out of me. I actually had to go back and watch it a couple of times. Other than that, nothing stood out too much, but it was enjoyable enough.

I'll agree with the Robin Williams joke being in bad taste. I didn't care for most of their potshots at him when he was alive, and this one just felt like an uninspired attempt to be edgy and controversial. There's pushing the boundaries of good taste in a way that's funny, and then there's being tasteless and hoping that the audacity of it all makes it funny. Family Guy's come to rely on the latter approach, and while it can sometimes work, on this occasion is just fell flat. 3/5 overall for me.
 
A great episode! One of the best in that season!
The first act was a little weak, but I liked Stewie's comment about the clam being on the other side of town. The best part was when the crazy carollers took Quagmire and Peter's reaction: " Oh my God, they got Quagmire!!! ".
The second act was great! I love how they used Patrick Swayze as the ghost of Christmas past, present and future. They made a good dynamic!
The third act was brilliant! A great ending, with it's funny jokes and somehow heartwarming atmosphere!
 
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