Home Release Review: Family Guy Vol. 11 on DVD

Family Guy kicked off its season the other night on FOX, but just a few days prior they released their 11th Volume of episodes on a 3-disc DVD set which includes a whole shit-load of special features. For starters you should check out the price. The MSRP is about $40 but I saw it at Best Buy for $30 and on Amazon for $20 and with 23 jam-packed episodes that’s a great value and certainly beats trying to purchase each episode for $2 a pop on Amazon’s Instant Video. Add in the fact that you have DVD commentaries on select episodes and deleted scenes and you are already in the black.

Each disc has its own set of special features. The first one has some animatics, deleted scenes, and an animatic but the cool thing on this disc is ‘Looking Back to the Pilot’ which was a rather fascinating featurette featuring the cast and the crew of Family Guy commenting on the merging of the pilot episode with that of the more modern look and feel of the show. The second disc featured a lot of behind-the-scenes for the episode ‘Fishin’ Around’ featuring Ricky Gervais. Similar to disc one, disc two featured an animatic of the episode but also another featurette where we got more insight and interviews with the crew behind the episode including from Mr. Gervais himself. The major player on disc three was the Viewer Mail episode featuring the great Ron MacFarlane. There was another animatic, but unlike the other discs no real good behind the scenes mini-doc about the episode and had it had that I think this home release would have been a timeless classic.

Add in the fact that these episodes of Family Guy are ALL uncensored, you have yourself a winner and an easy decision for a buy.