TheRetroCritic

A couple of years ago, man of a thousand voices Seth MacFarlane brought his brand of humour to Western comedy A Million Ways To Die In West , a feature he directs, co-writes and stars in (not as a bear, this time). The film didn't exactly wow critics and it basically flew by, somehow making a profit on the way despite less-than-flattering reviews. The film itself goes for an old-fashioned look but a defiantly anachronistic and modern take on the subgenre with characters speaking like people would today and the odd pop culture reference. It's not a completely new idea and it's something that works much better in a cartoon than it does in a live-action film but it can definitely work. Mel Brooks always could make that kind of thing funny. Unfortunately, here, it's like the film is trying much too hard to make that a hilarious aspect of the movie when it's, in fact, one of its weakest ideas. The concept that people in the Old West could die of pretty much anythi

After the success of Blue Harvest , the Family Guy gang soon went to work on a second installment and the result was Something, Something, Something Dark Side , a spoof of the second Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back . Once again, the power goes out and the Griffins are denied television so Peter (Seth MacFarlane) starts telling the story of Episode V, although he starts off describing the movie Black Snake Moan . Early jokes include Sesame Street 's Cookie Monster as a wampa, an impromptu George Takei cameo, a tauntaun with the head of Don Knotts, a Rodney Dangerfield reference and a Juicy Fruit commercial in the middle of the action. The movie and TV references keep coming fast with everything from Iron Man to Flash Gordon , Back To The Future Part II and Rocky IV getting their dues. Expect cameo appearances by Tom Selleck, James Caan and James Woods. Characters-wise, the main additions here are Yoda (voiced by Jon Benjamin) and Lando Calrissian (Mort, bizarrely

Back in 2007, slightly before Family Guy tackled Star Wars with their own spoof Blue Harvest , the Robot Chicken team delivered a 22 minute-long episode full of nerdy lols then went on to produce two more. Robot Chicken maestro Seth Green of course handled a good bunch of the voice work but the episodes also included cameos from the likes of George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels plus a handful of non-Star Wars-related celebrities. Seth MacFarlane also took on a few voices, the most memorable one being the Emperor. The skits are presented in typical Robot Chicken form, separated by short bursts of white noise, and the jokes come fast. As is the case with most parodies, the whole thing is a bit hit-and-miss, but a lot of it does stick. In the first instalment, Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode I , some highlights include the Emperor receiving a collect call from Darth Vader telling him the Death Star has exploded, an Imperial officer e

"A long time ago, but somehow in the future..." Back in 2007, Family Guy opened its sixth season with Blue Harvest , the first in a trilogy of Star Wars spoofs/homages. The hour-long episode followed A New Hope pretty closely with the characters from Seth MacFarlane's show taking over all the roles. The framing device for the episode is the TV loses power so Peter Griffin tells his family the story of Star Wars starting, of course, with Part IV. The iconic text scroll soon trails off into random Angelina Jolie-themed gossip and we meet our droids, Quagmire as C-3PO and Cleveland as R2-D2. The scenes recreated from the film are surprisingly detailed at times with some shots or actions replicated exactly. While Robot Chicken went for a goofy best of, this goes all out with retelling the classic story and injecting some humour into every scene. Some of the jokes are obvious, a lot are much more obscure so hardcore fans should have a ball with this one. Obi-Wa