Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46957 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-31
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Box set, Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 9

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Family Guy Collection is a nine-disc set containing all 50 episodes from the show's three seasons, plus two bonus discs of additional material including commentaries, deleted scenes and featurettes.

Creator Seth MacFarlane drew on his own New England upbringing to create the dysfunctional Griffin family and the other less-than-endearing inhabitants of Quahog, Rhode Island. In addition to animating the original concept, MacFarlane also voices the show's three most indelible characters: recklessly stupid paterfamilias Peter Griffin, sophisticated pooch Brian and Stewie, the one-year-old obsessed with world domination.

Though comparisons are inevitable, from the outset Family Guy established itself as no mere Simpsons clone. Quahog is both a more realistic and far less cuddly place than Springfield. The Griffins and their neighbours inhabit a town where both random acts of violence and virulent verbal abuse are doled out on a regular basis; they indulge in copious (albeit mild) swearing; and the mocking of minorities, PC attitudes and pretty much anyone and anything else, is delightfully commonplace. Most joyfully distinctive of all, though, are the flashbacks, surreal episodes and sundry other non sequiturs that continually interrupt the Griffins' daily lives.

The show is also characterised by a plethora of pop-culture references, many of which will fall flat for a non-US audience. But the scattershot approach to jokes--they just keep coming and coming--ensures that for every one you don't get, there will be three that will have you in stitches. Rumours abound of a potential fourth season and even a movie; but for now this is the definitive collection.

On the DVD: The Family Guy Collection presents the episodes on discs as they appeared in the original three box sets, with no extra features nor anything as useful as a "Play All" facility. Two bonus discs contain all the additional material: here 14 episodes have optional chatty, laid-back commentaries from MacFarlane and other members of the creative team. MacFarlane also appears in the short featurettes, talking about the show's creation and its interminable censorship problems. The rough-and-ready original pilot is also here, as well as animatic storyboards for selected scenes and seven TV promo spots. While the extra features alone are unlikely to tempt anyone who already has the series box sets, those who have only sampled Family Guy so far will not want to miss this opportunity to own every joyous episode. --Mark Walker

DVD Description
Complete Series 1-3 collection plus two bonus discs, including episode commentaries, deleted scenes, pilot pitch, promos and featurettes.

Special Features
28 deleted scenes

Pilot pitch Family Guy featurette

Uncensored featurette

Series overview featurette

Behind the scenes featurette

7 Fox.com promos

14 audio commentaries for the following episodes:

Season 1: Death Has a Shadow; The Son Also Draws; Peter Peter Caviar Eater; Holy Crap. Season 2: Fifteen Minutes of Shame; Let's Go to the Hop; He's Too Sexy for His Fat; E Peterbus Unum; When You Wish Upon a Weinstein. Season 3: Death Lives; Mr Saturday Night; Ready Willing and Disabled; Mr Griffin Goes to Washington; Brian Wallows and Peter Swallows.

Sound: Dolby 2.0

Picture: 4:3

Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing

Customer Reviews

Censorship causes dissapointment.
I feel no need to comment on the excelence of the product, as that has been done adequately already.
I instead thought I would point out the things which really let the DVD collection down. Many of the episodes you will watch are not the originals which airred on television. They have instead been censored by having certain scenes cut from the version on the dvd. A lot of this unneccessary censorship is a result of the event's of 9/11. Although this show was produced before then, many of the shows funniest scenes have been cut in the interest of political correctness. To someone like myself it is obvious where scenes have been removed, and it leaves a feeling of dissapointment about the collection. Scenes which were once filled with comic genius, are now bland & unentertaining due to the removal of a punch line.
One example which springs to mind is the season 2 episode "the road to rhode island" Stewie tries to board an aeroplane armed with a backpack full of weapons. He gets past the x-ray technicians by distracting them by singing "On the Good Ship Lollypop." Once past them he mutters "Let's hope Osama Bin Laden doesn't know show tunes. The Osama comment is cut & leaves the entire sequence feeling unfinished. There are many more occasions like this throughout the box set.
Seeing as this is currently the only way to get your hands on the full family guy series, you may choose to put up with this. But I know that many of you like myself would prefer to wait for a censorship free version which will undoubtedtly emerge with time, especially seeing as new series of the show is planned to be produced in the near future.

Articulate and hilarious
It is hard to quantify the sheer brilliance of this wonderfully written show. Naturally, it will be linked to The Simpsons and Futurama, but while being within the same genre, few other similarities shine through. The Simpsons and Futurama are both excellent shows which hold a place in my heart, but Family Guy is the more educated of the shows. The writing for the show was consistently witty and always verging on risque, and never afraid to infringe upon sensitive material, but maintaining the morality that is expected of the genre.

Family Guy draws references from almost every film i believe i have ever seen and from numerous tv shows. Opinionated but brilliantly stereotypical, Family Guy is one of the funniest shows i have had the fortune to watch, and i eagerly await the new series since it was brought back from the grave.

No ordinary cartoon at all
It's obvious to draw comparisons of Family Guy to The Simpsons: both feature a family of five: Peter, a large and loveable oaf of a father and daughter Meg unaccepted by her schoolmates are the most obvious of similarities. But what separates them is that Family Guy is gloriously dark (Stewie is obsessed with killing his mother), and lacks the schmaltz that The Simpsons sometimes resorts to. Don't let that put you off: it's often equally hilarious and the writing quality is nothing short of astounding. The show regularly cuts the scene to a flashback or a surreal vision: classics include Chris (the overweight son)' great, great uncle Jabba The Griffin, and a 'real' Peter. Laughs are generated by spoofing everything and anything, whether it's horrific Friends rip-off Dharma And Greg or even risqué jabs at O.J. Simpson and Osama Bin Laden. It's recently been saved by its legion of fans, but until then, buy this twice: one for now, one for when you've worn the disc out.