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Seth McFarlane

CBS's Charlie Rose Toasts Filthy 'Family Guy' Maker's 'Funny and Smart' Career

By Tim Graham | July 07, 2012 | 14:11

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One of the reasons that dirty-cartoon purveyor Seth MacFarlane is very, very rich is that journalists utterly fail to question the tastelessness of his TV shows or movies when he appears for interviews. Just take CBS This Morning on Monday, where host Charlie Rose treated MacFarlane like an artiste as they discussed his new pervert-teddy-bear movie Ted.

As MacFarlane said the challenge was "to walk the line between sweetness and bad taste," Rose merely echoed "That's the story of your career...It is high brow, low brow. It is being funny at the same time, being smart." Rose made no attempt to question the teddy bear's pot smoking, hookers, or spraying himself in the face with hand lotion to simulate an orgasm:

‘Ted’: The Kind of Flick You’d Expect from the ‘Family Guy’

By Lauren Thompson | June 29, 2012 | 14:25

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Much like Peter Pan, Seth McFarlane doesn’t want to grow up. For an entertainment producer, that can be a good thing.

But instead of transporting his audience to Never Never Land, McFarlane’s TV shows “Family Guy” and “American Dad” take viewers on a tour of a pubescent boys’ locker room: gross-out contests, twisted sex jokes, vicious taunting. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes not, but it’s all as fresh as old gym socks. 

Bozell Column: Charlie Sheen Roasts and Boasts

By Brent Bozell | September 24, 2011 | 09:05

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It’s easy to get nostalgic for those classic Dean Martin TV celebrity roasts. Just watch a Comedy Central Friars Club roast. This is not comedy; they are unremittingly vicious. When they announced they were going to roast Charlie Sheen, a disgraceful human being if ever there was one, there was a sense of karmic comeuppance. Then the show aired. Only someone as deranged as Sheen would find it funny.

Sheen is deserving of plenty of verbal head-slaps for his aerobically amoral life with prostitutes, his wife-beating/strangling, and his bizarre behavior after being fired by the gutter-level CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men.” But this was supposed to be comedic. Instead, it was a merciless bonfire of ferocity. No humanity remained.

Family Guy’s 'Down Syndrome Girl' Song Gets Emmy Nod

By Alana Goodman | July 09, 2010 | 17:47

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"Down Syndrome Girl," the unfunny and offensive Family Guy song poking fun at a female character with special needs, has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

The Feb. 14 Family Guy episode, which the song appeared in, sparked outrage after its premiere - most notably from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who has a son with Down syndrome.

At one point in the episode, the character with Down syndrome said that her mom was "the former governor of Alaska," a clear reference to Palin and her son, Trig.

Palin quickly criticized the show for the distasteful jab at her son. "[W]hy make it tougher on the special needs community? When is enough enough? When are we going to be willing to say some things just aren't really funny?" she said on Feb. 16.