Starring Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Seth Green, Mike Henry, Patrick Warburton
Written By: Seth MacFarlane, David Zuckerman, Chris Sheridan, Steve Callaghan
Directed By:
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Buy on Amazon.com link

Another Family Guy DVD is out and the show still continues to be a laugh out loud riot! I don’t really remember seeing these episodes so it was nice to see them again on the DVD. If you own the other Family Guy DVDs, you’re in for a treat!

Family Guy Volume 4 DVD contains 14 episodes from the second part of season 4. Season 4 was split into two volumes to pretty much make money, but it’s also split up that way because of how the episodes were aired. If I remember correctly, the gap between Season 4 part 1 and 2 were a month or two apart? But anyway, this is the second part of that season. Volume 4 starts off with the episode “PTV,” which is a nice attack on the stupid FCC. Peter gets so fed up with the FCC censoring all the good parts of his TV shows, that he starts his own TV station. You can probably figure out the type of shows Peter decides to broadcast on his censor-free TV station. That episode is fitting because Family Guy was getting a lot grief from the FCC after the Janet Jackson incident. Other stuff that happens on Family Guy the second half of season 4 is: Brian goes to college and sucks as a student, Peter starts up a fat guys club, Peter starts up his own church that is dedicated to the Fonz, Peter becomes a best-selling erotic novelist, Stewie gets sucked into the spirit world, Quagmire settles down and gets engaged, Brian & Stewie sing with Frank Sinatra Jr, and Mayor West dates Meg.

The second part of Season 4 had a lot of funny episodes, but the show also seems a little bit, I don’t know, watered down? Or the jokes are starting to get redundant and aren’t outrageous as the previous seasons. Volume 3 saw many unnecessary cameos from the Greased Up Deaf Guy and the Evil Monkey in the Closet, and this part of the season sees more unnecessary cameos from the piano guys and that creepy old pedophile, Hebert. Though I like the character of Hebert and glad they expanded on his weird character some more. It just seems where he pops up is just totally random and doesn’t really belong. The flashbacks in Volume 4 were still hilariously funny but sometimes I didn’t get every one because they would be really obscure. Many of the references are from the 1980s and while I got most of the jokes, there are some I scratched my head over. I didn’t get that extremely weird song Hebert sings in one of the episodes. He’s dressed up as a women and married to Chris and makes me feel like I’ve been violated where the bathing suit covers. But regardless of all the negative comments I made about this season, it’s still a joy to watch every Sunday. Or whenever the hell it’s on since Fox likes to show stupid sport games instead. Family Guy is still funnier than any Simpsons episode has been in the last, um 8 years? Speaking of the Simpsons, it was nice to see the people behind the show fire back at the Simpsons and make fun of them a little bit. Now they should go after South Park since they had an entire episode ripping FG a new asshole.

Volume 4 DVD has some decent bonus materials. Unlike the previous seasons, there is audio commentary on every episode with creator Seth MacFarlane, and other writers and actors. There’s a great featurette all about the directors of the show. They do a lot more besides just direct episodes, and that’s always been a myth about them. Peter Shin drawing Stewie featurette was neat seeing how Stewie is drawn. As a wanna-be cartoonist myself, I always enjoy those type of featurettes and wish there was more of that on animated Tv show DVDs. Also included in the bonus features is a glimpse of the Family Guy office, deleted scenes and few other little things.

Family Guy Season 4 comes to a close on this volume and there are plenty of laughs among the episodes. Though Family Guy isn’t as funny as the first three seasons. Maybe i’ve seen all these episodes a million times on Cartoon Network and just not as funny as the initial airing? One thing nice about this DVD set is you can watch 5 episodes with uncensored audio. You don’t even have to select an option to watch it that way either. If you have the other Family Guy DVDs, than you’ll enjoy this DVD set as well.

Features:
– Commentary on every episode by series creator Seth MacFarlane and others
– Multi-angle scene studies
– “A Director’s Life: Debunking the Myth” Featurette
– “Peter Shin Draws Stewie” Featurette
– “Behind the Scenes: A Glimpse into the Family Guys Office” featurette
– 44 Deleted Scenes

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:

Subtitles:
Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes: PTV, Brian Goes to College, Fay Guy Strangler, I Take Thee Quagmire, Petergeist, Griffin Family History
Rating: NR
Running Time: 315 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: