Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
Stars the voices of Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mike Henry, Phil Lamarr,
John Viener, Rachael MacFarlane, Gilbert Gottfried, Wil Wheaton | Created by Seth MacFarlane
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £12.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 52 minutes | Directed by Greg Colton
Back in 2008, Seth MacFarlane began an experiment. He set up a YouTube channel, got sponsorship from a fast-food chain and unleashed a web-based series of short cartoons. This DVD is a result of that experiment.
What we have here are 50 cartoons, ranging in length from just a few seconds to about a minute. They range from jokes about pop culture icons and digs at film stars, Christianity and Republicans to rather tastelss jokes about AIDS, sex with sheep, a mountaineer who shits on an outdoor wedding from a great height, Optimus Prime having sex with a girl, Fred Flintstone taking a shit, Dick Cheney having sex with a girl (by punching her repeatedly in the face), Quentin Tarantino performing a circumcision, and sex with a sheep. Yep, there's definitely a pattern there. My favourite character? The Scotsman who can't watch a film without shouting at the screen. Yes, very silly, but funny – particularly when he calls Kermit the Frog a "poopet".
The cartoons play pretty much like the cutaway gags from Family guy, minus the storyline and action from the Griffins. Being web based originally, and now on DVD (there are 23 episodes here that were released online, and 27 made just for the DVD) there is no limit to swearing – so be prepared for sme pretty liberal language. I found the hit-miss ratio about 50-50, but then I'm a huge fan of Family Guy and American Dad ... while The Cleveland Show is growing on me as the first season progresses. Some of the best humour is in the cartoon titles themselves, such as: Name That Animal Penis, Two Persian Guys Try to Get Ladies Into Their Sports Car, Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? To Fuck Your Mother Up the Ass, and What Happens If You Feed a Dog Chocolate While He Wears a Tin Foil Hat in the Microwave. Yes, pretty juvenile for the most part, but much of it had me giggling along quite merrily. Overall, this is one that I can recommend only for the hardest of hardcore MacFarlane fans.
EXTRAS * Text Almost nothing to speak of in the way of extras, sadly – which, combined with the 52-minute running time, means this is not a great value DVD release. Apart from the cartoon, the only bonus stuff to be had are footage from the red carpet premiere of the DVD in LA, where Seth M and Seth G are joined by a cavalcade of "celebrities" such as the naked fat guy from Borat to ... errr ... watch the DVD. And there's a gallery of character development sketches and suchlike.