SETH MACFARLANE DOMINATION

I am by no means a Seth MacFarlane hater. I loved Family Guy during its original run, grew to love it even more in reruns, and eagerly looked forward to new episodes when it returned to Fox.

But when those new episodes finally arrived, I couldn't deny that they seemed a little... off. I had the distinct impression that MacFarlane and company were straining. Then American Dad came along, and I don't think I made it to the end of the first season. It was funny, sometimes. But being paired with Family Dad on Sunday nights made the too-similar American Dad seem weaker by comparison, and the two shows together was just too much of MacFarlane's comic style at once. His shows weren't really based on characters, they were all about the shock comedy... And I really don't need an entire hour of shock comedy on Sunday nights.

Then MacFarlane started doing short cartoons online. And then he debuted Cleveland, a third show on Sunday nights. I haven't watched Fox on Sundays for months, and I've never even seen a single episode of Cleveland. It could be brilliant, but at this point MacFarlane reminds me of a character in an old Gahan Wilson cartoon: a guy and girl are seated at a table in a fancy restaurant. The guy is wearing a weird hat, his loud coat is covered with wacky buttons, he has a noisemaker in each hand, a kazoo in his mouth and a rather desperate expression on his face. The girl is looking at him wearily. "You try too hard, Eddie," she says.

So even as this clip from the CollegeHumor folks makes me laugh, it also makes me a little sad. I think MacFarlane is a comic genius, of sorts. But he tries too hard. Fox keeps throwing cash at him, and he keeps coming up with new shows, supervising them and voicing them while he spends his coffee breaks scrawling out ideas for other new shows. It's like his entire career is passing before our eyes in five years instead of 15, or 20. He's already reaching the repetitive burnout stage, and he just got here.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

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