It should come as no surprise that Fox's filthy animated sitcom The Family Guy once again crossed the boundaries of good taste and decency on the January 8, 2006 episode "Brian Swings and Sings."  In the episode, the theme seems to be that parents and authority figures are buffoons, have inappropriate sexual boundaries, and are generally idiots that should be mocked, disrespected, or exploited.

In one scene, Meg's male teacher prepares to show a video to his class of a science documentary he recorded at home.  Instead, he mistakenly brought a home sex video of his antics with his wife.  The video depicts the teacher wearing a black bra, panties and fishnet tights.  The teacher offers to show the video to his class.  Teacher: "...you know what, I'm sorry, can I just go ahead and show this video of me [bleeping] my wife?"

In another plot line, teenaged Meg decides that a way to gain popularity and friends at school is to join the Lesbian Alliance Club.  She is not a lesbian, but she pretends to be in order to fit in with the cool girls.  When she announces it to her family, her father leers, "That's awesome!" playing on the stereotype that all men find lesbians sexy, in spite of the fact that Meg is his daughter.

Later on, Meg invites one of her new friends home.  Lois, Meg's mother, enters the room and questions the validity of Meg's recent conversion.  Lois demands that Meg kiss her friend to prove she's gay.  In front of her mother, Meg tentatively kisses her friend, but Lois isn't satisfied.  Lois demonstrates what she considers a "real" kiss by kissing Meg's friend passionately, complete with satisfied-sounding moans.  Just as Lois finishes kissing the girl, Lois's son, Chris, comes out of Meg's closet with a video camera.  Apparently he'd been recording the entire encounter hoping to sell it.  Their neighbor, Quagmire, also emerges from the closet holding a microphone and immediately asks the women to sign a release form for their involvement.

This episode was appalling for its portrayal of authority figures as idiots with no inhibition about crossing sexual boundaries with children they are supposed to have responsibility for protecting and teaching.  A teacher exposing students to his kinky sexual videos and a mother being exploited by her son for possible pornographic profit is not funny or clever, it is disgusting and sick.  The Family Guy airs at 9:00/8:00 p.m. ET/CT on Fox Sunday nights and is not for children. 

The Parents Television Council - www.parentstv.org