Blu-Ray Review: Hilarious ‘Laugh it Up, Fuzzball: The Family Guy Trilogy’

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CHICAGO – The opening crawl of “Family Guy: It’s a Trap!” jokingly suggests that the viewer should lower his expectations since the writers had totally run out of steam by this point and were pressured by Fox into doing a spoof of “Return of the Jedi” to close out their “Star Wars” trilogy, now released in one Blu-ray set known as “Laugh It Up, Fuzzball: The Family Guy Trilogy.” The warning is somewhat accurate (although that’s largely because “Jedi” is the least-interesting film to spoof) but there’s still some damn funny stuff in here and fans of either Lucas or MacFarlane don’t want to miss it.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

It started when the “Family Guy” team turned their knowledge of the Lucas trilogy (something chronicled in a half-hour featurette on “It’s a Trap” in which several of the major players merely play “Star Wars Trivial Pursuit” looking for a champion) into the very clever and massively-successful “Blue Harvest.” They tackled the sequel (and arguably the best sci-fi film of all time) in “Something, Something, Something Dark Side” and now they’re back for the last movie, joking about the prequels at the end that “…The Cleveland Show is going to do those.”

Laugh It Up, Fuzzball: The Family Guy Trilogy was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 21st, 2010.
Photo credit: Fox Home Video

Once again, the writers hit the main plot points and actually do present most of the story just in “Family Guy” style. We’re so accustomed now to “who’s playing who” that just seeing Peter as Han Solo or Stewie as Darth Vader doesn’t hit the funny bone as hard (although Han’s emergence from carbonite is pretty hysterical) so it’s more often the throwaway jokes that truly connect. As for highlights, a bit involving a sock puppet made me laugh harder than anything in the first two releases and a recurring riff on Seth Green’s career that culminates in some nice jabs at Seth MacFarlane is pretty great.

Family Guy: It’s a Trap! was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 21st, 2010. Photo credit: Fox Home Video

The basics are the same: Peter Griffin “plays” Han Solo, Chris is Luke Skywalker, Lois is Princess Leia, Stewie is Darth Vader, Brian is Chewbacca, and Quagmire and Cleveland are C-3P0 and R2D2, respectively. “Family Guy: It’s a Trap” actually features a few appearances by other MacFarlane-verse characters from “American Dad!” and “The Cleveland Show” and Meg once again gets a hilarious cameo.

Once again, most of the jokes in “It’s a Trap” don’t work if you’re not familiar with both “Return of the Jedi” and “Family Guy” but crossover between these two fan bases is pretty common. Now that all three are available in one box set, it’s easier to look back and see what’s been accomplished here and it’s pretty damn funny stuff, especially given the fact that the show has been a bit uninspired lately. Maybe now that they’re done with “Laugh It Up, Fuzzball,” they can devote the creative energy that was spent here back to the show itself. Unless they move on to “The Lord of the Rings.”

You might be surprised how great “Family Guy” looks in HD. Animation often pops of the screen in 1080p — visually, this is easily the most-impressive of the three films — and the special features are pretty great. You have to love any commentary track that opens with “Hey f**kers, it’s Groundhog Day!” Once again, the commentary is fun but a bit crowded, but a must-listen for fans of the show. The exhaustion is pretty hilarious — “It’s season nine, we all want to kill ourselves.”

Special Features:

“Family Guy: Blue Harvest”
o Audio Commentary
o A Conversation With “Star Wars” Creator George Lucas
o “Once in a Lifetime: The Making of Blue Harvest”
o Animatic Version of “Blue Harvest”
o “Family Guy: Star Wars” Clip Show
o Uncensored Audio Track

“Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Darkside”
o Audio Commentary
o Family Guy Fact-Up
o “The Dark Side Of Poster Art”
o Sneak Peek Of “Family Guy: Episode VI: We Have A Bad Feeling About This Table Read…”and More!
o Digital Copy

“Family Guy: It’s a Trap!”
o Audio Commentary
o “A Very Special Message from Darth Stewie”
o Star Wars Trivial Pursuit: The Ultimate Championship
o Drawing with Peter Shin
o Sock Puppet Outtakes
o “Family Guy: It’s A Trap!” Animatic
o Making the Scene
o Digital Copy

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]