F Is For Family

I think we’ve all seen this little box.  There it sits in your Netflix menu, coming up time and time again.  You’re looking for that latest boxset that’s become mandatory viewing within your social circle, or double-checking just in case Netflix have started putting popular films on again (they haven’t).  But no, drawing your eyes from Wild Wild Country or Kingdom is this show: F Is For Family.  Yet, you’ve no idea why.  Its beigey-whiteish hues, its crudely illustrated characters (each with a scowl), its name that doesn’t really make any sense: none of these things are particularly appealing.  But don’t worry, I won’t let you be worn down by attrition.  Frequency is not the same as quality.  I, the boxset ranger, have done you all a favour.  Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve only gone and watched all of F Is For Family.  And now, by vindicating me with a reading of this blog, I shall impart unto you whether you should succumb to its persistence (like a Riverdale) or if you should ignore the programme’s existence entirely, thereby maintaining your quality of life (much as I didn’t when I sat through all of Altered Carbon).

It's an animated show about a dysfunctional family.  So far, so Simpsons.  Also, so Family Guy, so Bob’s Burgers, so so many other programmes.  You’ll note I haven’t dared yet cover the first two in this list on Just One More Episode.  However, keep reading my posts forever, as both are in my strategic content plan (Bob’s Burgers, though, I have totally done, so click on that link then and you can get yourself caught up on that post in case you’ve ever missed anything I have to say), but such influential cultural phenomena require a bit of a run up.  I’m still laughing that I used the word strategic in relation to my content plan.  There’s no strategy; there’s no plan; and there’s not that much content beside me talking about myself (so, to that end, keep telling me what I should cover).  The trick to approaching any new animated family is to find what’s different about them compared to all those that have sat on cartoon sofas before them.  Otherwise, you risk King Of The Hill happening all over again: everyone expects Simpsonian high jinks and ends up with a more subtle and specific form of humour.

Our big difference in F Is For Family is that everything is set in the seventies.  From our morally advanced glasshouse of 2019 and beyond (Brexit, Trump etc), we can throw stones at this bygone decade’s attitudes towards all matter of things about which we want to believe we have achieved greater enlightenment: gender equality, racial equality, health and safety.  These are all played for laughs, leaving you to marvel that things were ever that way, before an ensuing crisis of confidence in your own open mind: is this joke at the expense of former attitudes to women in the workplace, or is it at the expense of women?  Well, here’s a moral conundrum nobody wants when watching a cartoon.  Either way, I’m not sure why I’ve brought it up, as I’ve always loved subversive comedy: the main thing is that you’re thinking about what you think.  Why not have some uncomfortable laughs along the way?

That’s the big difference covered then.  Otherwise, the family in the For Family bit of F Is For Family is run of a certain kind of mill.  Frank Murphy is our paterfamilias (a word I’ve never used before, and I’m 34), all white shirt and angry voice.  His tirades are laced with enough effing and jeffing that you can’t help thinking about calling social services to ensure the safety of his children.  But don’t worry, as wife Sue is a strong foil to his clenched fists and spewed vitriol.  Indeed, eldest son Kevin is such a loser (enjoying wizard-based rock and failing at school) that you can see why Frank is not a fan.  Youngest offspring, Bill and Maureen, add an extra element of sinister undertones, most notably whenever Bill is forced to witness some sort of harrowing violent or sexual act: his haunted eyes will stay with you long after you’ve chuckled at his plight.

Beyond the Murphys, it’s the supporting cast that are more interesting.  Ginny Throater is a creation whose neighbourly annoyingness is compounded by her incredible accent: she extends her every vowel to cover the full range and this just bloody tickles me, alright.  Bob Pogo, Frank’s morbidly obese, chain-smoking boss at the airport, serves to lampoon our past’s bad attitudes to personal health.  You can literally hear the fatty flesh of his neck compressing his windpipe when he speaks or wheezes while trying to reach mayonnaise from his mobility scooter.  A completely unacceptable figure in many ways, yet why does his ilk still block my path on many a busy street?  The blackest humour is saved for Ben and Kenny, two neglected neighbourhood kids inhabiting woodland when shooed out of houses.  Neither has jackets, but Kenny does have a full nappy, despite being way beyond the age of potty training.  Their throwaway lines are dark, especially when they mention they are looked after at home by a grandmother who is sleeping at the end of the stairs.

Let’s conclude now.  Those were my observations.  You have read them.  Should you watch this show, though?  Well, I’m going to go off my response to hearing that a fourth series was on the way: I felt positive about the prospect of watching more.  Therefore, this is a good show.  It’s neatly episodic, yet the Murphys’ fortunes progress (or decline) across the sequence of a season.  I want to know what happens next.  There’ll be loads more silliness to chuckle at when we reach the eighties.  So next time that little beigey-whiteish box is staring at you from the TV screen, and you’ve got half an hour spare, click it and watch it.  Just don’t ask me what the F is for.  Probably f***.