Random Waves of Insight

Last night I watched a new "Family Guy" and a new "American Dad." It occurred to me that the creator must be pretty busy running two popular shows that both need new episodes.

There was one moment that stood out for me, when Stewie was commenting on Bryan's parenting ability. In the middle of a sentence, he started playing around with the pronunciation of a word, twisting it and slowing it down, and all of a sudden he started making really rapid and unexpected spitting noises. It was so ridiculous that it reminded me of my first impressions of Family Guy, like the times Peter would fall over way faster than normal.

I liked the conversation Stewie had with Matthew McConaughey. I think it was Seth Green who provided McConaughey's voice, and I don't know if he ad-libbed, but it was terrific. I liked McConaughey's portrayed attitude, and how relaxed he was when reacting to such negative comments (from Stewie). I also thought his responses made a lot of sense, and his life sounded pretty terrific (even if his movies don't appeal to everyone).

I also liked the two foreign guys who sounded "not quite normal" when speaking English. That was neat.

I remember Bryan or Peter coming through the screen and telling me to write about them on the internet. Well, actually they didn't come through the screen. One just mentioned off the cuff that if we had a problem with their logic, we should blog about it. What logic? Bryan apparently has a 13 year old son. Bryan is 7 years old. Bryan said, "That's in dog years."

I think the creator of the show did that on purpose for two reasons. First, because bloggers had probably ranted about stuff in the show earlier, and he figured, "This will give them a real reason to complain." And second, maybe it's part of a publicity strategy.

Anyway, I thought I'd look up Dog Years just to see if I was right in my guess as to how Bryan's take on the situation didn't make sense.

Wikipedia says there's a urban legend under which 1 year of human life is equal to 7 dog years.

So for every 365 day year, a dog is supposed to age like a human would over the course of 7 years. So a dog ages 7 times faster than a man, kind of like that movie with Robin Williams, "Jack."

Anyway, if Bryan is 7 human years old, and his supposed son is 13, then Bryan isn't the father (unless sci-fi shenanigans occurred).

Stewie said, "Aren't you 7?" Bryan replied, "That's in dog years."

So if the figure of 7 was in dog years, then Bryan, being 7 "dog years" old, would be 1 human year old.

I think Bryan said the wrong thing on purpose.

What makes more sense is that Bryan is 49, and 49 is in dog years, making Bryan 7 human years old.

Another possibility is that when Bryan said, "That's in dog years," he was really referring to the figure of 13, referring to the age of his supposed son. If that was the case, then the son would be almost 2 human years old, and since Bryan is 7 human years old, all is well.

Except... Bryan probably wasn't referring to the figure of 13, as the most relevant figure he could have referred to had come just before his remark. That was when Stewie said, "Aren't you 7?"

But I've met people who have weird conversations, where A, B, C, and D were all said before, then you say E, they say F, and you say, "how does that follow what I just said?" And they say, "I was referring to C." Infuriating, but not impossible.

Anyway, I noticed two other illogical moments in Family Guy and American Dad together, but I only remember one.

At the end of "American Dad," Francine was upset about how much money the father and son had spent to pay for a model rocket that didn't win a competition. Stan justified his actions by saying, "You've got to spend money to make money." Francine countered with, "But you didn't make any money." Stan replied, "Then by that logic, I didn't spend any. Goodnight, everybody!"

I thought about it, and wondered what the point is of saying things that don't make sense. Maybe it's a humor trend.

Anyway, if the idea that you must spend money to make money is true, then all money that is earned comes after some amount of spending.

So no matter what, if you make money, then at some point you've spent money. "By that logic" works here.

But you can still spend money to no apparent end, and not end up making any. So if you don't make any money, that doesn't mean you've spent it. But of course Stan Smith knew this, he was probably just using fuzzy logic to shut his wife up. But I'll bet she continued the conversation in "American Dad" world during and after the credits.

There... I've fulfilled the prophecy by blogging about what I beheld.

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