Review: Family Guy ‘Grimm Job’

 

Spoilers Below

After a night out for their anniversary dinner, Peter and Lois are ready to settle in for a good night’s rest. But as many parents with a baby know, a good night’s sleep isn’t always easy to come by. Stewie is giving a cry for attention in the next room and Peter must do his fatherly duty and try and get his youngest son to sleep. Peter’s plan of action is to read Stewie three fairy tale stories: Jack and the Bean Stalk, Little Red Riding Hood and, Cinderella.

First I would just like to say that I’ve always enjoyed episodes where the Griffins take on roles of other popular characters. The Star Wars trilogy still remain some of my favorite Family Guy episodes, the references are always a chuckle and I find it humorous when the writers make the viewers look at popular stories in a different light. Now onto the actual review..

Our first story is Jack and the Bean Stalk, probably my least favorite of the three stories told in this episode. Peter, playing the role of Jack, is tasked selling the family’s cow (Brian) in town. Jack doesn’t make it as far as the town though, and instead ends up selling the cow to the troll from under the bridge (Mort). I’m sure you all know the rest of the story. The beans are thrown out the window by a disgruntled Lois, a bean stalk grows and Jack climbs it to find a magic goose and a giant.

This first portion of the episode was cleverly thought out. I was laughing all the way through until Chris Griffin was revealed as the giant. One of my complaints is that I wished that Meg played the giant instead, but that’s just a tiny complaint. It being my least favorite of the three stories is simply due to it not making me laugh as much as the other two. It was a very funny, sure, but the pacing felt off. The beginning started great but the conclusion felt kind of rushed to me. I would have liked to have seen more interaction with Jack (Peter) and the Giant (Chris).

The second portion of the episode was a take on Little Red Riding Hood. Stewie (Red) is off through the woods to see grandma. Along the way Red runs into the big bad wolf (Brian) and the two have a funny exchange of words. The story was definitely my favourite of the three. The conclusion at grandma’s house was golden! I was almost had me in tears, it was so funny. I would have liked to have seen this take on Little Red Riding Hood be its own episode entirely! A complaint about this was hard to find but I guess if I had to say anything, it was just too short!

The last story in the episode is a retelling of one of the most popular princesses ever, Cinderella. In this version of the classic story, we have Lois as Cinderella, the ugly step sisters being played by Stewie and Meg, and Lady Tremaine being played by Barbara Pewterschmidt. This was hilarious, guys. Stewie as a sassy stepsister, the fairy god mother turning Joe into the carriage. These are just a few of the things you’ll get to see. There was a lack of character use in this portion of the episode. They even joke about the lack of female characters they could use. Meg was underutilized throughout the entire episode, so it was good to see her show up, even though she didn’t have many lines.

Overall, this was a great episode. Some may say that the writers were lazy by copy and pasting classic stories and just adding a Family Guy filter. That could be true, but it’s never something I’ve objected to personally. Making jokes about stories we all know and love is very funny to me and like I mentioned above, it makes us look at these stories in a different way. While I hope these types of episodes are kept few, I always welcome the odd one here and there. Well done, Family Guy. This one was great. Definitely check this out if you already haven’t.

So, what did you guys think of “Grimm Job”? Did you find it funny as I did? What other classic fairy tales would you have liked to see? Let us know!