Family Guy season 16 episode “Three Directors” filters the same story through Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, and Michael Bay. While it later became a huge success, Family Guy struggled in its early years. The show debuted on Fox in 1999 and followed Peter Griffin, his family, and friends. Peter is capable of being a good father and husband, but he’s also a dimwitted, self-absorbed jerk too, which leads to no end of comic situations. While the show was accused of being a Simpsons ripoff in its early years, it still attracted a cult following.
This wasn’t enough to prevent Family Guy from being cancelled after its third season in 2002. Strong DVD sales and viewing figures for repeat airings led to it being resurrected a few years later and it’s still running to this day. Despite its success, Family Guy has often been criticized for its reliance on random cutaway gags and lazy parodies. Like The Simpsons, some feel Family Guy has run too long, but despite these critiques, it still has a loving fanbase and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.
The show occasionally likes to do some experimental episodes, such as season 16’s “Send In Stewie, Please.” This saw Stewie spend an entire episode talking to a child psychologist and features no random cutaway gags or appearances by Peter; it also saw Stewie use his real accent for the first time. Season 16 also yielded Family Guy “Three Directors,” which Peter introduces by explaining three filmmakers will interpret the same story - Peter getting fired by the brewery - in their own unique way.
The first filmmaker skewed in Family Guy “Three Directors” is Quentin Tarantino, which sees Peter fired for being late and stealing a golden beer keg. His boss Angela later has him gunned down in a very Kill Bill fashion, before recovering and engaging in a gory fight with an army of Tricia Takanawas. Outside of a couple of chuckles like Christoph Waltz firing Peter in a bizarrely accented way, most of the jabs at Tarantino’s work are a little too broad to really land.
Next up in Family Guy “Three Directors” is Wes Anderson, which finds Stewie narrating Peter being fired and trying to put on a play. This segment makes fun of the exaggerated twee of most of Anderson’s work like the Griffin’s living in a lighthouse, and stylistic quirks like a foreign language cover of “I Got You Babe,” like the David Bowie covers found in The Life Aquatic. This is the briefest segment of the episode, with Peter even quipping “Wouldn’t it be nice if all of Wes Anderson’s movies were actually that short?”
The final section in Family Guy “Three Directors” is the Michael Bay segment, which is probably the best. The story finds a very muscley Peter tasked with destroying Transformers with his unique ability to toss beer kegs. The episode features many Bay-isms, including swirly camera shots, action scenes rendered incomprehensible due to quick edits, and lots of American flags. Like the previous segments on Family Guy “Three Directors” the swipes aren’t especially sharp, but its at least the most fun of the three.
Next: All The Times The Simpsons Called Family Guy Out For Plagiarism/Copying
