I don't have a clue where the negative reviews are coming from with this show. If you like some the random older comedies like Garth Merengies Dark Place, Spaced and The League of Gentleman. I think you will love this. I played a few episodes in my living room and everyone was in stitches laughing at the thing.------Spoilers below------It's aimed at the British public and has little digs at the elements of our culture that have become big for no explainable reason. For example. X-factor is mocked in the first show to good effect. Another episode makes Jamie Oliver come across as a little un-hinged and aggressive which works for the humour as its random and out of character.I can understand the comparisons to South Park/Simpson/Family Guy etc. But that is only because its an animation, with a family, and the comedy is a little edgy. That's it in terms of similarities. As a previous reviewer said. It reminds me a little of the old spitting image show, as famous characters mannerisms are overly emphasised. Jamie Oliver as a swearing loud mouth cockney, the queen having a "sexually adventurous" youth, Richard Branson being over ridiculous with his money. etc etc. There is also occasional subtle things you have to keep an eye out for that can cause giggles. E.G. When ever we cut to see Ant and Dec on X factor in the first episode they are holding hands/about to kiss/having a secret relationship.To me and my friends, the show works. I think it failed because it was shown to early in the evening on TV. The upper-classes stumbled across it and as it pokes fun and points out the holes in a few things they consider "entertainment". It was shot down before it had a chance to get anywhere. The review in the Guardian was particularly critical after the first episode and that was one of the better episodes in my opinion. If it was shown a little later I think it would have avoided this negative response and would have been given the opportunity to gain momentum. Family Guy/South Park/Simpsons are good but we all have moments when some jokes are aimed at the Americans and everyone else watching just looks at each other and shrugs their shoulders. It was nice to have a similar style show in England where everything was for us. Hope it gets a DVD release at least so we can see the last un-aired episode. I'm giving it a 9 of 10 as it is good (But nothings perfect). Everything has room for improvement. But as it is, it more than successful at making me laugh.
... View MoreThe attempts by MTV to make American versions of Channel 4's 'Skins' and 'The Inbetweeners' have been universally despised by fans of the originals, and it seems that Channel 4 has finally gotten its revenge on America with its new show 'Full English', which is basically a British version of Family Guy but with everything that made Family Guy good taken out. It was probably the most painful experience I have ever had watching a TV show. Everything was wrong; the timing, the animation, the voice acting and, most of all, the "humour". Like Family Guy, the show derives virtually none of its humour from the plot and instead relies on cutaways and pop culture related jokes but, unlike Family Guy, its cutaways and TV/celebrity spoofs aren't funny. It fails to live up to the standards of any of the main American animated sitcoms; it lacks not only the laugh out loud humour of Family Guy, but also the biting satire of South Park, the wit of Futurama and the heart and warmth of The Simpsons. The fact that this pile of crap actually made me appreciate the tenth season of Family Guy should be an indicator of the quality of the show. AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS! If you want a new animated sitcom that's good watch Adult Swim's 'The Boondocks', a sharp and funny social satire of race relations in America which hasn't aired in the UK yet, so you can pretend it's new.
... View MoreThere is quite a lot of hate for this cartoon after 1 episode, which i find hard to believe as the show has only aired one episode so far and is only in its infancy. I must state i am a huge family guy and American dad fan, so naturally was excited by this programme although not as good as the previously mentioned shows it has very good moments and it shows a lot of potential and i don't think it should be badly reviewed after 1 episode, i'm going to give it at least 3 episodes before committing to my early opinion of the show. I must say there where numerous moments in the show which made me laugh. the pushing the boundaries element to the show which i loved (family guy does it well) and would like to see more u.k shows attempt it (of course i'm talking about the queen scenes) i hope this show lasts and people give it a chance i don't like the way some shows are cancelled before they're given the chance they deserve. a few more episodes will show weather this is a fail or a success.
... View MoreChannel 4′s new animated sitcom has been billed as a rival to US shows The Simpsons and Family Guy. But the creators of Full English have abjectly failed to grasp what makes these shows, and the equally popular South Park, so sharp, funny, and well directed.OK, they've weakly cloned a few of Family Guy's more recognisable characters, but they've utterly failed to clone the skill and expertise behind the execution.As a nation we love American cartoon series. We pay millions to the US to import them. And yet our own comedy writers appear to learn nothing from them. Family Guy has pace. It's crammed with physical action and visual gags. It effectively uses the fact that it's an animated series – creating story lines and gag set-ups on a huge scale.You can do anything you like in an animated series. Homer Simpson has been into outer space. Peter Griffin has fought with a giant chicken across five continents. Stewie and Brian have gone back in time and fought against the Nazis.In contrast, Full English is small scale, unimaginative, unbearably slow, and seems to consist mainly of close ups of talking heads in the living rooms of terraced houses.Even in the nineteen sixties the Americans were teaching us the skills we needed to make great cartoon series. Top Cat, The Flintstones, these fast moving, pacy shows were laying the foundations for Family Guy and The Simpsons. Seth MacFarlane and Matt Groening watched and learned. We didn't.Alex Scarfe (son of legendary caricaturist Gerald) and Jack & Harry Williams have written an unfunny script that could just as easily have been shot with actors in a studio set. They've effectively penned a live action sitcom and then handed it to some animators and said, "Make it move." And to be honest, the animation looks pretty cheap, drab and shoddy. South Park has its finger on the pulse. It taps into the zeitgeist – sharply satirising what's going on in the real world in the present day. Full English churned out a lame parody of Britain's Got Talent – a series that's been running on UK television for five years – picking up on the fact that Simon Cowell tends to cash in on contestants' sob stories.Sorry guys, but I'm afraid the whole of Britain has been taking the mickey out of that since the summer of 2007. What are you going to send up next week? Harold Wilson and the miners' strike? Richard Ayoade (IT Crowd) and Kayvan Novak (Facejacker) are the two main voice talents, and they, at least, add a touch of class to this deeply flawed and disappointing project.The people who commissioned this series clearly knew very little about animation, and they have subsequently spent millions of pounds of Channel Four's money making a cartoon series that is not fit to lick the boots of Seth MacFarlane or Matt Groening.Read more TV reviews at Mouthbox.co.uk
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