How the Cutaway Problem Changed Family Guy 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Correlation is different than causation. While there's correlation here, you may disagree with my feelings about causation! But in my opinion in this case, the two co-exist! ALSO, relied on an editing expression to create these trend lines and it did not go well lol

Family guy will always be the greatest background noise of all time.

From what I've read the Conway Twitty thing was in the show because FOX wouldnt let some jokes air so seth mcfarlane retaliated by wasting air time with Conway twitty and making fox pay for the rights to use the clip

Cutaways went from tasteful and well executed comedy to lazy gag reels

The only thing I don’t really like about family guy is that they explain almost all their jokes before they tell them. For example they’ll have lines like this. “Ok but first Imma sit here and try and put on a shoe that’s too small” and then have Peter or another character struggling to put on a shoe for 3 mins. And then have the “joke” end with something like, “ah ok this shoe doesn’t fit.”

I never noticed the cutaway thing until Southpark pointed it out, and then it made it hard to watch family guy episodes afterwards without noticing how many there were and thereby feeling like there was too many

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the episode "Brian & Stewie" an episode devoid of cutaways.

Important note that cutaways were incredibly shorter in the earlier seasons, and drag on basically forever in the latest episodes

I have been wondering why Stewie isn't an evil genius anymore. It's like every episode he's trying to either deny or allude to the fact that he may or may not be gay. Him wanting to kill Lois or take over the world was always a big part. Now, he gets crapped on by other kids and he slinks away instead of exacting revenge.

Seth McFarland literally said he’s tired of doing the show and wants it to end

Lets not forget that in Season 9, Episode 17 that they showed the ENTIRE David Bowie and Mick Jagger video "Dancing in the Streets". Not just a snippet... THE ENTIRE VIDEO! **sigh**

There may have been a lot of cutaways in Season 4, but the difference is that those cutaways lasted less and were generally funnier than most current ones that eat up half an episode, go on for too long and now just sit there awkwardly in an episode.

To me the show died when Stewie change from psychopath genius to a gay baby

Actually, their ratings decline is pretty in-line with the decline in viewership of cable TV as a whole.

The main reason I haven't kept up with Family Guy is because I stopped watching TV.

Imagine watching family guy on TV when there are a million channels on RU-vid posting awkwardly cut full episodes

The Conway Twity one was the worst. Even Quagmire hated it.

It's almost like the cutaways are a substitute for the laugh track on the big bang theory, everytime someone says a punch line.

I think the biggest problem with Family Guy is that the characters are no longer relatable. They have all morphed into caricatures of the characters they once were. Peter started out as a lovable goofball that messed things up because of his incompetence, but his heart was in the right place and the audience could see that he did it with the best intentions, to someone who was just flat out annoying and some times down right mean. He changed from the underdog that you wanted to succeed into someone you wanted to see fail.

As a kid, the cutaways were what were most funny and unique about the show.

hey dude! end screens aren’t working! just letting you know

As a kid I used to think the cutaways were hilarious, but as a 24 year old man now they’ve become pretty obnoxious lmao

I think you are forgetting the generational element. I watched Family Guy when it first came out back in college, it was a new genre of comedy and everyone virally loved it. As time passed my friends and I moved on and just haven't kept up with it.

I always felt the main culprit of the "let's rely in cutaways that make no sense" was the second fight with the Giant Chicken.

I think when Family Guy was brought back from cancellation (the second time around, not the first) they started overrelying on the cutaway gags for the bulk of their humor if there were no references to be made or politics to wear out. The writers got comfortable, the viewers got comfortable thinking it was still at its high peak for some reason, and now here we are where it's still chugging along thinking it's still popular like it was in 1999.

This video would have been much more entertaining with a few cutaways.

When I watched Family Guy Seasons 6-10 I really enjoyed it because the amount of cutaways were sparse and there was actually a storyline and some special episodes, I was always waiting for the cutaways to come since in some episodes they were only 5 or less, but now cutaways literally appear in almost every scene and I tend to forget what was the point of the story anymore, almost like the episode revolves around short-story cutaways not the actual characters.

Family guy has a special place in my heart

God: oh... and Conway Twitty says cut it out. Just write a joke.

But if Family Guy ends, who's going to explain the joke?

Personally I don't think it's just the cutaways/age thats making the show deteriorate. For me it's the combination between steep changes in the style of comedy along with the formulaic something random happens which leads to x character becoming obsessive with something to the point of being a dick, screwing up, everyone forgives next episode

I always thought the reliance on cutaways was due to the rise of RU-vid. Around Season 6, isolated Family Guy cutaways on RU-vid were getting VERY popular, and very easy to share through the internet since they were so short.

5:47 Holy shit. Unintentionally rapping some insane bars to the music

I mean the creator himself said that it should have ended at S10.

A very well thought out video, with some good points. I enjoyed it. Thanks 👍

Damn you make great videos always a joy to watch.

Me watching the intro: that fancy cutaway is hilarious. Nerdstalgic: this is bad. Oh.

No one: YT content creators: *Why every show ever is dead.*

When you're so bored of RU-vid, you start watching family guys analysis.

I just like Family Guy, so I can see the problems in it and this is one of them. It's not the worst problem, that would be the writing and formula that most new episodes follow ( Peter does something bad, some sort of B story. Peter story is resolved by some attempt at emotion, B story is randomly resolved or helps solve Peter story, the end on the couch). I swear I like Family Guy though.

I think viewership problems aren't just the cutaways fault, the characters have changed a lot since the beginning too. I loved family guy in the earlier seasons Peter was a lovable idiot, Stewie was an evil genius baby, Brian was the voice of reason (funny since he's a dog), then I see these newer episodes where Peter is a huge douche to everybody, Stewie is just being a gay stereotype nowadays he's not even evil anymore, Brian is also a jerk now. and the rest of the family is just exaggerating their traits as well. they used to have tons of funny jokes but now they just add tons of unneeded violence for shock humor. I stopped watching long ago.

I used to watch Family Guy religiously but then it got really stupid.

Family guy cutaways are so out of no where and good and great video man :]

That gully in seasons 6-8 seems to fall in line with when South Park called them out on the cutaways in the "cartoon wars" story arc.

every time conway twitty appears I roll my eyes and turn the channel.

They just hired more manatees and added more balls to the tank.

At around 6:30, you propose that we aren’t watching less cable TV because of the Super Bowl’s increase in ratings over the past ten years. I believe the ratings for sports channels in general could be drastically different because of the way games are broadcasted live, the traditions (Fantasy, team loyalty, etc.) and the Super Bowl’s international appeal. Family Guy, like most shows, doesn’t have that same sense of community. It is very re-watchable however, which is why streaming services give these shows the most potential.

Comparing the super bowl with a tv show that also is on multiple streaming platforms is one of the dumbest things I ever saw

Family guy used to be a tv show with some funny cutaways Now family guy is cutaways with the skeleton of a tv show

2:13 Sorry what? The graphics really REALLY don't show that growth you're talking about

Some of these things you concluded from the graphs feel a bit forced. When you have like ten dots you can't really say there is a trend. Just one dot in a different place could change it.

1:20 Spiderman: Everybody gets one Also that Spider-Man was voiced by Seth Mcfarlane

I like how they joke about Scrub's use of cutaways and yet they would be there for an actual comedic related note became a gag but never overshadowed too much of the show, unlike Family Guy

I thought I was the only one who hated the conway twitty segments they took way to long

I don’t know how the show is doing now, but I feel like their still captivating younger audiences today. Young kids to teenagers have grown use to the cutaways and are not seeing how lazy and pointless it all is. To be completely honest, I was the same way. I watched this show when I was barley 11-years-old and I have simply viewed the cutaways as integral to the show. To the point where i questioned why other shows didn’t have cutaways. Humor is subjective, but it’s only when I started appreciating others shows that I realized how lazy Family Guys humor was. But what also grinds my gears, is how in between the lazy jokes and cutaways, are these powerful and emotional/serious episodes full of characters. Example being Brian and Stewie. These episodes develop these characters so well. That single episode where Brian and Stewie are locked in a bank together, is 10 times more powerful then anything from season 9- current. But these episodes are pointless. The development for these characters eventually dies. Stewie goes from a high tech genius to a sexuality confused dude who occasionally forgets his a high tech genius. In fact, later seasons, jokes are around the idea that Stewie is gay and his still a child and the show treats him as such. They have completely given up on the idea of making Stewie into a mad genius and became very lazy with his character. Don’t even get me started on Brian. This character went from Stewie’s intellectual equal and voice of reason to the family, to a scumbag who goes after woman’s bodies. The jokes now is that Brian is a hypocrite who says he loves woman for their souls but is only dating woman for their body. The characters don’t grow, they don’t change, as a matter of fact, they get worse throughout the seasons. So my question is this, why show powerful and serious episodes if they don’t matter? Why disrupt the status quo with episodes that bring so much heart into these characters, if the very next episodes does the exact opposite? Family guy is a show that picked in the early 2000’s, with humor based on the early days of the Bush and Clinton administrations. It’s a show that had a lot to say, but now all is set and done. Maybe it is time to give it a rest, but so long as their are young audiences still watching this show, it won’t go away.

I appreciate the video. I haven’t watched the past 5 seasons or so mostly. But the recent episodes I have seen I’ve laughed so damn hard. I would argue the cutaways are one the best aspects of the show and don’t really have to do with the ratings. I have a playlist with FG clips and most of them are cutaways.

Family Guy will always be in my top 3 shows. Something nostalgic, something relaxing, something to watch right before bed. I have watched it every night since I was in middle school.

By season 10, South Park was like.... Ight.... I'm done warmin' up.... Time to get serious....

Is it just me, or Family Guy is rising again, all of those shorts and clips from yt and tiktok actually gaining them more viewers

Syndication has a huge effect on ratings. Even though they aren’t new episodes, the audience can get their “family guy fix” on several different networks

Family guy isn’t dying tv is dying and online streaming is growing

They haven't done a Conway Twitty in a decade, the only reason they happened was because they'd do a joke that the studio shot down for whatever reasons so they deliberately put in live action vids and force the studios to pay royalties.

I was revisiting the 1999 episode "Da Boom," the Y2K episode. I think what this analysis missed is that it isn't just a matter of the volume of cutaways - there are still two full cutaways and a number of locational cutaways in the first four minutes of this classic episode. But the majority of the cutaways here are at least tangentially connected to the plot. The location cutaways all establish events occuring as the nuclear warheads fire (the generals noting the misshapen Y in the random Happy New Year pattern of the missile launches; Bill Clinton making a "what the hell" sexual advance on his wife as the bombs go off ) and the true cutaways are directly connected to the events the family is experiencing. As Lois and Peter go through the last bits of their rations in the kitchen, Lois laments all the food they've wasted. Cut to Peter feeding beans to Tom Selleck on their tv screen. Then after finding the grocery store is fully picked over, Peter remarks that Twinkies are a food that could survive the apocalypse; he saw it on a documentary. Cut to the very fun gag about Twinkie the Kid and his Wonder Woman lasso. Then the family goes to seek out the Twinkie factory. In a much later scene, they come across Randy Newman's orchard. No "remember that time," they just actually have a scene with him and it is part of the ongoing plot of the episode. His annoying narrative singing drives them from paradise back onto their quest. Point being, yes, Family Guy has always relied on some degree of nonsequiters for humor; the legendary chicken fight is funny for precisely the reason that reason. But Family Guy at it's best made an attempt to place it's best gags either in the main story itself or did it's due diligence to connect the cutaways to the plot or theme of the episode. "Hey remember that time" became a debilitating crutch, not only in that increased the number of possible cutaways but reduced the requirement to give them any connective tissue whatsoever. This coupled with a move toward ever-crasser and edgier humor, rapid Flanderization of the main characters, and probably McFarlane becoming stretched thin across a sea of other projects left the show a parody of itself.

That graph does not show a continuous increase over time. They're using less now than they did in season two, and season 4 had the most 🤷‍♂️

1. Simpson’s got old a lot faster than family guy did. Family guy should probably end soon but so should the Simpson’s. 2. American Dad (outside of the first 2 or 3 seasons) has been better than family guy ever since. And is to this day, a better show.

Remember when Family Guy cutaway gags used to be flashbacks like in the first episode? Good times...

The most recent season of family guy, at least the most recent one on Netflix, was hilarious. But the decline is totally noticeable.

What do the numbers you showed look like for season 18? I for one have really enjoyed it and would like to know if the numbers 'support' my thoughts.

The cutoff for me was when Meg became a punching bag to the point where it became abusive and not funny. There wasnt love within the family. So what is it that keeps the character dynamics worth tuning into?

According to your graphics, in the last 5 seasons the cutaways have been dropping constantly, but so did the ratings. 5 seasons in a row feels too big of a sample size to just disregard in reaching that conclusion. Dont get me wrong, i agree that they are part of the problem, but i believe there are more fundamental issues with the show bigger than that, no matter how you feel about the cutaways, if you watch the show on a regular basis, u understand that its something that is part of its identity and also know it will be a hit and a miss, hard to point that as the reason someone would just stop watching the show altogether

I used to love family guy when I was younger, but I watched a new episode recently and honestly I found it so hard to follow because it has become a shell with no plot just full of cutaways. It's a shame the direction it's gone in.

the touch the sky beat playing in the background was gold

Family guy has been built around telling as many jokes as possible in a short amount of time. This turns into a mixed bag.

Season 4 is actually probably my favourite. So many GOLDEN EPISODES.

I personally really like a good amount of them useless cutaways. Its a thing that makes family guy what it is.

Put up a chart in regards to the steady incline of the Internet versus using cable viewership numbers. -coughs- Your overthinking.

Family Guy unfortenatly was consumed too much by greed and just like The Simpsons forgot of what made it special in the first place.

I still watch it and American dad.. Love them both and regret nothing.

“The later seasons are filled with cutaways.” *Shows significantly less cutaways on the graph than Season 3*

Correct me if I’m wrong but wouldn’t more runtime of just the story of the family be boring as shit? The show is the cutaways that’s why it’s not the Simpson’s it’s family guy.

2:10 Gonna have to hard disagree that they’re increasing as the seasons go on. It looks pretty flat overall

I always preferred American Dad. Similar formula but with different characters and can actually adhere to a plot without cutaways.

Am I really the only one that really still enjoys the new family guy episodes?

the spongebob oh boy 3 am is the best cutaway

"We need to move on from the Griffins" Yeah the creators tried doing that. With 2 other families, different settings, characters and honour styles. It still didnt work

At this point, Seth’s show has been RUINED. he literally doesn’t even want to do it anymore. I used to love family guy, but I haven’t watched anything beyond season 10.

You make amazing graphics!

honestly the cutaways in Family Guy is one of my favourite things about the show

I feel like with the newer episodes they break “the fourth wall” too much

Say it with me now, kids: “Flanderization”

"Let that sink in for a second." Gotcha will do, Twitter.

Thank you for using Touch the Sky

Damn. This reminds me of the time I sang “La Cucaracha” to Paul McCartney. ....or did I?

Uuugh, I always hated that Conway Twitty joke. Even the first time.

Since the cutaways tend to usually make me laugh, and since I very strongly believe that is the point of comedy, to make you laugh, I therefore have no issues with them. Working as intended.

family guy episode be like: [generic start of episode] [cutaway] [character does crazy thing] [cutaway] [crazy thing resolved] [cutaway] [end]

Say what you will about cutaways but "it ain't easy being cheesy" and the cookie monsters cookie dough spoon cutaways are classics

I surely hope other animated shows don’t resort to this narrative device since it is so unfunny

The latter seasons losing viewers isn’t exactly only caused by the uptick of cutaways. Most people don’t take into account the number of people who don’t even buy cable anymore. Streaming services allow for people to watch these shows, in any order and never feed back into the “ratings” system. I rarely watched family guy on tv but once Netflix had it I binged it multiple times, years later and it’s on Hulu and I watch it on there. Anecdotally all my friends do as well. I wish there was a way to incorporate such data. Edit: you’ve talked about this so thanks for touching on this. I don’t think the comparison to the superbowl is fair though.

What kinda app do u use do thes edits?