A Family guy episode on YouTube?

Can someone help me find that one clip where they're in the drunken clam once it was taken over by those british dudes? thx

The episode is called 'One If By Clam, Two If By Sea'. It's season 3, episode 4.

You might be better off using a website like show-links.tv or fartoons.org since youtube can be unreliable for stuff like this.

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How I Grew to Love Family Guy

I became a Family Guy fan reluctantly. In fact, I didn't hear much about it until late 2005, during my college senior year. Most of my classmates liked it and compared it favorably to The Simpsons. Truth be told, the advertisements I saw for the show were less than persuasive and, ironically enough, highlighted the gags that most made it seem like an obvious rip-off of Matt Groening's classic. Adding to this was a bit of stubbornness. I loved The Simpsons and still do. I couldn't imagine another animated sitcom surpassing my love for a show that had been on the air for almost twenty years.

            In early 2006 I started dating a woman who was a fan of the show and we would watch it each night at her house. I got into a few episodes and took note of the original format (I was just beginning to get the notorious cut-away gags) but not enough to regularly watch the show on my own.

            My first real interest in Family Guy came in 2008 when I saw an ad for an upcoming episode. It was the one in which Peter thinks he can speak Italian simply because he grew a moustache. I thought the bit at the Italian deli with the perplexed butcher was very funny and resolved to watch the show when I got a chance.

            I was slow to warm up to the show and to this day I still have some reservations about it. Yes, the show is a rip-off of The Simpsons. This goes beyond Peter Griffin's resemblance to Homer Simpson. Many of the episode plot lines as well as reoccurring elements within the show owe more than a little to the world of Springfield. Moe's Tavern is now The Drunken Clam. Peter's drinking buddies are also a white pervert (Quagmire/Lenny) and a mellow black guy (Cleveland/Carl). Like Lisa Simpson, Meg Griffin is also a distraught teenager trying to fit in. Mothering the households are Marge Simpson and Lois Griffin, and they are both voiced by female Jewish comedians with a shrill nagging voice.

            But Family Guy compensates for its lack of originality with a radical format and length at which it pushes the limits. I remember some of the controversies when The Simpsons first came out. In St. Mark's School in Dorchester, where I went as a child, students were forbidden from bringing any Simpsons toys or collectibles. Many parents protested and, as always, this helped the show catch on. Family Guy followed the path that The Simpsons had paved and walked even further. The show admittedly knows no boundaries and that, I argue, is its intention.

            By 2009 I had become a fan of Family Guy. While I still have a few quibbles with the show, I admit (with the same discomfort as Stewie and Brian had when they were locked in the bank vault) to loving the show. I laugh with it because I finally understand its goal. Comedy is an evolving thing, especially so shock comedy. Despite the protests some twenty years ago, The Simpsons seems tame today. Family Guy is simply following in the tradition by taking edgy humor to the next step. Someday, there will be another animated sitcom that will take an even further step, though I can't imagine how much further comedy can go.

            Does Family Guy go too far? Sometimes, yes. Even the most loyal fans of the show will concede to this and so has show creator Seth MacFarlane. But those who oppose the sitcom's approach to satire in principle are missing the point. MacFarlane knows how wrong some of the things in the show are. That's the whole point! Family Guy is testing audience limits in the way that television has been doing ever since the word "pregnant" appeared on I Love Lucy. If we can acknowledge this, then we can cut loose and enjoy the show. Of course the gags will make us gasp, that's what MacFarlane intends for us to do. Once we realize that nothing is sacred in MacFarlane's universe, the negative shocks will subside. Eventually, people will catch on that every demographic is fair game in Family Guy and a case could be made that the show is a useful mirror to our perception of our society.

            Part of what helped me grow so fond of the show is the emergence of a pattern. Family Guy has its own laws and canon rules and spotting them brings an understanding necessary to appreciate the humor. The widely unpopular cut-away gags do serve a purpose. To begin with, they are fun. They are not to be taken as events that really occurred, but how the characters imagine the unfolding of a hypothetical event. They enable the animators to revel in the anarchy of cartoon logic by "killing" the characters without having to "kill" them. The early animators never had this problem as cartoons were indestructible. Not even the nine lives of a cat would have been enough for poor Tom of Tom & Jerry after all the times he was literally shattered to pieces, for instance. Wile E. Coyote would not have survived past the first cartoon had it not been written in stone that a toon can't be killed.

            But a line was drawn between mortal and immortal toons. Slapstick toons, be they human or anthropomorphic animals, were immortal. So while a toon bunny like Bugs would never end up as rabbit stew, "real" animals like Bambi's mother could easily become venison. When animation came to TV and cartoons started representing variations of real life (The Flintstones, The Jetsons, etc.), the demise of a character would disrupt the continuity of the series. The Simpsons found an innovative solution to this with the Treehouse of Horror episodes that broke free from the canon and could freely murder reoccurring characters just to bring them back in the next normal episode.

            Cut-away gags are Family Guy's solution. Peter's head is shown exploding after sucking on frozen popsicles, mutated versions of the characters appear, and sometimes they interact with historical figures they never would have met (such as Hellen Keller). This works because it is made clear that these events never really happened but rather are how the characters imagine such an even to look like.

            Of course, the other part of the pattern is that Family Guy is a show of no rules. By using the deus ex machina, dreams, virtual reality, and illustrated thoughts as narrative device, the animators have enjoyed a freedom seldom seen since the days of Tex Avery to literally be able to have anything happen to no consequence. The cut-away gags are a compromise. The animators can keep the continuity while also experimenting with wild catastrophes.

            Recognizing its laws and mentality, I have grown very fond of Family Guy. Is it a television classic? No, but it's a very funny show with a wide knowledge of contemporary culture. I have even grown fond of Seth MacFarlane, who shares with a love for old-time musical theater, movies, liberal politics, and Star Wars. I will always consider it a knock-off of The Simpsons and at times shake my head at a tasteless gag here and there. But when I need to laugh on a Sunday night, I'm definitely lucky there's a Family Guy.

About the Author

I was born in Dorchester, MA on January 8, 1983 and though I was raised and live in Boston. All my life, writing has been my primary sustainment. Writing, of course, and my love for reading, cinema, and travel.