“Who watches “˜Desperate Housewives?'”
asked Duncan Shea, a first-year undecided student.
“A lot of people; I’d be careful with that
statement,” warned Stephen Pramme, a fourth-year chemical
engineering student.
But they are not worried about “Family Guy” getting
cancelled again.
“In the age of TiVo and whatever else, I’m sure if
you wanted to watch both, you could. And you can always download
one of the episodes after it happens anyway. You could catch either
one,” said Pramme.
Pramme is the resident assistant of Hedrick 4 North, the
“Family Guy”-themed floor. His residents include Shea,
along with fellow “Family Guy” fans and first-year
undecided students Tim O’Connor and Brett Rehder. They
watched the new episode on Sunday in the Hedrick Fireside Lounge,
along with about 60 other students on two big screens.
“Family Guy” was the big attraction of the event,
though “The Simpsons,” which was showing before,
managed to draw about half as many people in the room. During
commercial breaks of “Family Guy,” the room buzzed with
chatter as people repeated their favorite lines, re-laughed at the
jokes, and dropped references to past episodes.
Though Shea had already seen the new episode online (it leaked
out onto several Web sites during the last few weeks), the show
managed to not lose its humor after one viewing.
“We’ve all seen (the past seasons’ episodes)
multiple times,” said Rehder. “We can all pretty much
quote it before it happens.”
“It’s like being psychic,” added
O’Connor.
And often to the annoyance of people who dislike the show, or
are unfamiliar with it, rabid fans find the show immensely
quotable.
“Anything that happens, you can use a quote,” said
Rehder.
Pramme was excited to watch the new season of “Family
Guy” because he didn’t know about the show until after
it was cancelled. One of his roommates introduced it to him.
“I’m watching all the reruns of “˜Family
Guy’ that are showing on Cartoon Network and TBS,” he
said. “I have all the episodes, but I like the fact its on
TV, and that I don’t have to pick the episodes,”
explained Pramme. “I go to (my computer), I look at all the
(episodes) I have, and think, “˜I just saw that one, just saw
that one,’ because I’ve seen them so many times. But if
it’s just on TV, then I don’t have to worry about
picking which one to watch.”
Rey Shelton, a second-year student, was also introduced to the
show by former roommates. He thought the new episode fit right in
with the others.
“It picked up where it left off,” said Shelton.
Like past seasons, the new episode used its unique blend of
politically incorrect humor and obscure references to poke fun at a
wide array of people, subjects and events. Nobody gets out
unscathed, according to Shelton.
“It’s so exaggerated that you know they don’t
really mean this,” said Pramme. “But some will be
offended.”
The “Family Guy” Facebook group has over 1,000
members, more than the several “Friends” groups and its
new competition, “Desperate Housewives.” Despite its
huge popularity on campus, however, the show may still be an
acquired taste.
“The first episode I watched, I didn’t like at all.
I was like, “˜That’s so stupid,'” said
Pramme. “But then I became obsessed.”