The night began pretty sorely. I invited my friend Byron (Magic Mountain co-worker) and we had some wine and dinner before heading to the theater. Three things happened to us right before we go to the theater.
ONE: We had a ticket waiting for us on the car. It turns out that even after reading the signs on the curb, I misread AM for PM! So we were illegally parked. Dang it!
TWO: I went to turn on my camera and IT HAD NO MEMORY. I left my freakin’ memory card in my card reader on my computer. I could have been sick.
THREE: Byron had no battieries for his camera! And he didn’t notice until we were already in the theater.

These three things could have made this night turn to crap, but we quickly got over it by the time the show started.

So, at around 11:20pm, the show started. A quick video presentation with some flashbacks of the three seasons accompanied by Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. Soon there after, the audience was introduced to a very intoxicated Seth MacFarlane, the creator, the voice of Peter, Stewie and Brian, and the emcee for the night. We were the 2nd of 2 shows for the night and between shows Seth and the gang had a few drinks.

Seth slowly introduced the panel, which included some of the writers and most of the actors who make up Family Guy. And so it was complete! Let me just say, Seth MacFarlane was probably the tallest of the actors and Seth Green was the shortest. And Mila Kunis was definitely the hottest.

And so the reading of the script began. It took them over an hour to get through the script from “Once Upon a Weinstein” which never even broadcast on Fox in the original 3 seasons. We all sat there, almost knowing every line and eagerly waiting in lots of anticipation for the funnies to be heard. It was really cool watching the actors voice out all of the characters.

There was a large screen above the actors and writers as they read the script. The director of the show had a lot of fancy video techniques as they read, including a split screen of two actors and sometimes a picture in picture of one actor as a few others were reading. One of the biggest laughs with these effects was when Seth and Seth were reading to each other. Seth Green caught on that he and Seth McF were basically staring each other in the fact on screen (when in reality they were 4 chair apart with the 2 girls in between). So, Seth started playing with Seth and eventually they made out on screen and groped each other. It was great, drunken fun!

After the reading completed, we saw a live performance of Seth McF and Alex Borstein of an upcoming song from the live album. Turns out this is the same song which was performed last year at Alex’s one woman show (where I actually met Alex at an after party).

Lastly, we saw a couple of clips from the upcoming season, including the season premiere and another minute and a half. Let me be one of the first to say that the first two minutes of Family Guy’s fourth season are going to wet your pants. It’s not necessarily because of what they do but because of what they say. Such an easy laugh, mind you, but totally worth watching!

So, in conclusion, if you haven’t seen Family Guy before, you are missing out.

TWO weeks AND COUNTING! Be there, May 1st, 9/8C on Fox.

Aside from my huge desire to go to that, I’m hoping to get some tickets to the House of Blues to see Eisley in concert. Eisley’s debut album is pretty sweet. If I listen to it enough and like it, it will probably appear on the sidebar as a groovy CD.

I wish I knew more people who were as fanatic about Family Guy as I am. It gets old doing everything by myself, but paying a lot of money to see the Family Guy reading just isn’t worth it by myself, or at least I keep telling myself that. If I went, I’d probably try to bring a camera in there with me and take some cool photos!

Anyway, those are two things I want to do. Anyone in LA reading this??

Starting this past Sunday, Fox began a five week broadcast of Family Guy Episodes at the 9/8 o’clock spot as a little teaser to whet your appetite. Since I own the DVD set, it won’t really upset me if I miss any episodes since I’ve seen all of them at least 5 times each. But, I highly recommend to you if you’re a fan of the Simpsons, Futurama, or South Park, you should give Family Guy a chance if you haven’t already. It’s rude, it’s crude, and it’s sometimes nude, but it’s absolutely hilarious!

It’s sad when you come across censorship in a very sad form. I understand why the FCC has to do what it does, it’s not totally lost. However, when it’s completely ambiguous for Fox to have to guess what’s appropriate to show and what’s not, there’s definitely something wrong. Five years ago, when an episode of the Family Guy broadcast, the episode was shown in its entirety. Yesterday, when they rebroadcast the episode, “Fox electronically blurred a character’s posterior, even though the image was seen…when the episode originally aired.” Sounds like a double standard to me.

For more info on Family Guy, you can check out these websites:

Family Guy on Fox.com
Planet Family Guy
Family Guy Reference Files

Now to catch up on much needed sleep.