I
was a Saturday morning cartoon kid. So
many were absolute garbage, but a select few stuck in my brain and helped form
a sense of humor and an imagination that decorates my daily life. Somewhere in there I found the beginnings of
timing and outsider attitude and the will to do the right thing. Yes, it happened that way. I watch them still, although I am much more
selective.


I’m
not sure why the writers at Family Guy
decided to let Stewie Griffin invent a time machine. The old Stewie, the one who wanted to kill
his mother was long over with, and the more mature Stewie had better places to
go. The time travelling in this
long-running and controversial animated series both celebrated the genre and satirized
it; which is what you want a genius baby in suspenders and a talking dog to do.
There
are 5 or 6 episodes that feature the time machine over the past few years:
“Road To Germany”, “The Big Bang Theory”, “Back To the Pilot”, “Yug Ylimaf”,
“Life of Brian” and “Christmas Guy”.
There is also a small bit in a viewer mail episode where Stewie, just to
kill some time before he is put to bed, goes back in time to save Kurt Cobain
before his suicide. He tells Cobain,
“There is another way.” and hands him a pint of Haagen Dazs. Stewie transports back home to find a live LP
of Nirvana and still living, but obese Kurt Cobain. He concludes: “You’re still alive, you fat
fuck.”
Because
time travel is an invention of fiction it is begging to be satirized. I think I’ve seen enough of horror, vampire
and dramatic satire out there. The first
line when Stewie and Brian travel to 1939 Poland is a great dig at bad time
travel fiction:
“Where
are we?” asks Stewie.
“You
mean, when are we?” Brian adds.
“That’s
such a douche time travel thing to say.”
Stewie
and Brian inadvertently destroyed and created the universe in “The Big Bang
Theory”. When Stewie’s arch-nemesis
Bertram discovers the time machine he tried to go back in time to undo Stewie’s
existence, but since he was the impetus of the Big Bang, Bertram would be
undoing the universe itself. They traveled
to multiple universes. Brian prevented
of 9/11 but inadvertently ended world. I
think they covered both loop and single string time travel plot devices. Each adventure tackled a separate trope. They
also reversed time, and recently, Stewie saved Brian’s life. (Such a strange
story arch. Brian was replaced by a new
dog and then returned again. But,
truthfully, no one misses the new dog anyway.)
Family Guy used
the device in different ways to explore different angles of time travel
fiction. The show does not get enough
credit for clever writing because 50 percent of it involves fart humor and
dumpster babies. With these later time
travel episodes, the writers found interesting wrinkles for the characters to
exploit and satire. So much fun stuff.
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