Family Guy is among the top ten comedy and drama shows favored to get Emmy nominations this year. The following shows haven’t been “officially” nominated, but they’re being released as in the running TO be nominated, in order to stave off wild rumors that went around the Interwebs last year, apparently. These shows will go on to two Blue Ribbon Panel screenings to be conducted throughout this weekend (June 28-29). The results of each panel will represent 50% percent of the vote and will be averaged together to determine the five nominees in each category. (you can read more about this somewhat complicated process here). Okay, so here are the ten nominations:

• Family Guy
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Entourage
• Flight of the Conchords
• The Office
• Pushing Daisies
• Two and a Half Men
• Ugly Betty
• Weeds

Official Emmy nominations will come out July 17.

I love Family Guy, honestly, I do, but sometimes they go too far into the realm of “trying to be funny but it backfires because it’s REALLY NOT FUNNY.” Case in point:

The time when Peter Griffin was doing a stand-up comedy routine in a hospital full of terminally ill children.

Making fun of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Sick.

Michael J. Fox and Parkinson’s.

Quagmire finding the tied-up cheerleader in the bathroom.

However, here’s the thing: Family Guy is going to offend everyone eventually. That seems to be their main goal. So even though they do push the envelope a wee bit too far sometimes, that’s why we keep watching.

The only bad part is when the really poor taste jokes are not done well - like the Prom Night Dumpster Baby. That was just stupid. Also, when they do the same joke a hundred times in one episode - that’s just lazy writing! What do you think - are there any moments or jokes in Family Guy that made you go “oh, they went too far!”?

Over at DeviantART, one of the best places on the Web to find really good (and really bad) amateur art, I’ve discovered a whole treasure chest of Family Guy art. Some of this is actually pretty good. Some of it….well, let’s just say that these people need to keep their day jobs.

First, Brian.

Luke Chueh vs The Family Guy by ~Luke-Chueh on deviantART

I would actually buy this one and hang it up somewhere. It’s pretty good.

More Family Guy art after the jump: Read more

There’s a great new interview with Seth MacFarlane in the Boston Herald. Here are the good bits:

On the show’s humor: “The thing that I try to do with ‘Family Guy’ is to have this balance between the classic and the edgy. We do a lot of poop jokes, but at the same time, we use a 45-piece orchestra every week with a full string section. And, you know, we don’t try to shock for shock’s sake. If something is just shocking and not funny, then we’ll cut it out. And we have these table reads every week, which we do for each episode, in which we have a very good cross-section of artists and people from the outside and writers, and the studio network is there. And no one is shy about gasping in horror if we have crossed the line, and so it’s a very good barometer.”

On the show’s cutaway scenes: “We see them as, in a weird way, these animated versions of one-frame ‘Far Side’ cartoons that are something you can only do really, I think, effectively in the animation medium. And they’re just laughs for laughs’ sake. You don’t have to know what’s going on with the plot. You don’t have to know what’s going on with character drive. It’s just pure comedy, we hope.”

Image credit Newscom

This Pirate Chase clip is from the episode titled “Long John Peter”, Family Guy Season 6. In this clip, we see Peter Griffin and his sea dogs (literal sea dogs) battle on the high freeways with their car, a sword, a big hat and a feather, and cannons. You know, standard issue for cars these days.

From Family Guy Season 2. In this clip, Chris is sitting on the diving board too embarrassed to take his shirt off and get in the water. Instead of gently asking him what’s wrong and perhaps working through it together, Peter instead uses this moment to teach Chris a valuable boob-licking lesson. Accomplishing pretty much nothing but further humiliation for Chris. Here’s the clip:

In an interesting and never before done move, the folks at Family Guy have put the animated show up in two different Emmy categories: the live-action, half-hour comedy category, and the animation category.

This hasn’t been done before, but they got away with it because of the Blue Harvest animated special. Basically, this would put them both in the animated category AND the live-action half-hour comedy category, according to the Emmy rules, and would put them not only against the Simpsons, but also The Office and My Name Is Earl.

My opinion? It’s too much. They could possibly grab a win in the Animation category, but there is NO WAY they are going to win against The Office. What do you think?

I’ve been diligently researching information on the new Cleveland Brown spinoff, and I’ve got some new information:

• That fat kid in the screenshot? That’s Cleveland Brown Jr., redesigned. I’m thinking that they put him on meds for his ADD and he got fat? Maybe?
• From ign.com: “Many years ago, Cleveland Brown (voiced by Mike Henry) was a high school student madly in love with a beautiful girl named Donna. Much to his dismay, his love went unrequited, and Donna wound up marrying another man. Cleveland once told Donna he would always love her, and if this man ever done her wrong, he’d be there when she called. Well, this man done her wrong. Donna’s husband skipped town with another woman, leaving Donna with a daughter and a baby. Now she’s come to Cleveland and offered him another chance at love. Unattached after the Loretta-Quagmire debacle and true to his word, Cleveland joyously accepts and he and Cleveland JR. move to Stoolbend, VA, to join their new family.”
• Talking Bears live next door that have some kind of Eastern European accent.
• Tentatively scheduled to be released in September 2009.

That’s all I have for now. One question I have for you - why do you think that Seth chose Cleveland Brown as his spinoff character? Why not Adam West, or Joe Swanson, or even Glen Quagmire?

UPDATED: May 27, 2008

OK! Here are some new tidbits about the Cleveland spinoff:

• The voice of Cleveland, Mike Henry, is comparing Cleveland to Bob Newhart. Which makes a lot of sense if you think about it.
• Cleveland thinks he’s on his way to California to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a minor league baseball scout - but ends up in his Virginia hometown, instead.
• The woman who Cleveland falls in love with is Donna, an old high school flame. She has a 16-year-old daughter, Roberta, who runs in the fast lane, and a 5-year-old son named Rollo, who’s streetwise and savvy to the ways of the world. Somewhat like Stewie.
• His next-door-neighbors on one side are the Pennyapple family from Great Britain, with Seth MacFarlane doing the voice of the father, Barrington Pennyapple.
• Across the street will be a family of rednecks - the dad is quite open about the fact he’s not quite comfortable with black people. Which should be both uncomfortable and funny, something that Family Guy is quite expert at.

Okay! Here’s the first official trailer of the Family Guy spinoff for Cleveland Brown:

The only clip I saw in there that wasn’t from Family Guy was the one of three Clevelands dancing, although that one looks familiar too. Here’s the lyrics for the song you hear Cleveland singing:

The Cleveland Show Song

“My name is Cleveland Brown
And I am proud to be
Right back in my home town
With my new family

There’s old friends and new friends
And even a bear
Through good times and bad times
It’s good times we share

And so I found a place
Where everyone will know
My happy black guy face
This is the Cleveland Show!”

Here we go: the first screen capture from the new Cleveland Brown spinoff. Looks like Cleveland remarries, and gets three new kids? What happens to Cleveland Jr.? And there looks to be some zany neighbors there in the background.

©2008 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: FOX

I’m definitely going to give this a try, but honestly, spinoffs don’t usually fare that well. Look at how many horrific trainwrecks came out of “Friends” and “Cheers”, for example. If anyone has a chance to make this actually good, it’s Seth MacFarlane. We’ll see. What do you think?