“STEWIE GRIFFIN: THE UNTOLD STORY” (2005)

Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Seth Green & Mike Henry
Written by Gary Janetti & Chris Sheridan (Part 1), Alex Borstein (Part 2)
& Steve Callaghan (Part 3)
Directed by Pete Michels

Polly Staffle Rating: *

Television programs should not be made into movies. Enough is enough. It didn’t take long for me to figure out making movies out of “Saturday Night Live” sketches was a bad idea. Even when I liked the show, I hated the features based off it. It’s just too hard to stretch a ten minute bit into an hour and a half. It doesn’t matter how funny the bit is. With the help of “Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story,” I now feel the same about television cartoons.

This movie is bad and doesn’t offer anything the Fox show doesn’t each Sunday. I knew I smelt something fishy when this was released straight to DVD and didn’t get a theatrical release. It’s not uncensored as it was advertised. The profanity was still bleeped and the nudity was mostly limited to Peter’s ass as usual. That’s because I think it was written for television. My guess is someone got offended by one of the Jesus jokes, the kiddie porn references, Bugs Bunny getting killed, the incest bit or baby Stewie shaving his scrotum and decided not to show it on TV. So it gets a DVD release and has to be stretched from fitting into an hour TV slot into an hour and a half.

There are some funny bits throughout the movie, but instead of one or two segments being pounded into the ground, this ends up feeling like one long boring segment that is kicked and beaten into submission. Stewie Griffin (voiced by Seth MacFarlane like just about every character on the show) doesn’t get the movie treatment he deserves at all. You would be better suited watching three or four episodes in a row. (And where the heck was Cleveland Brown? He is my favorite character, besides Peter, but Cleveland was barely in the film.)

This feature just joins a long list of cartoons stretched into bad movies. There was “Beavis and Butthead Do America,” which had its moments but still didn’t work. “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” pushed the envelope more than the Comedy Central show, but still sucked. Worst than those are when they turn them into non-animated movies like painfully bad “Scooby Doo.” I have refused to see “Fat Albert” due to fear that it will destroy fond childhood memories so I can’t judge it, but my guess is it is horribly wrong. And I never really watched the cartoon “Aeon Flux,” so when I see that movie it will be judged on its own and I still suspect it will suck.

With this history in mind, I do not want “King of the Hill,” “The Simpsons” or “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” made into movies. The madness must stop. Sure there will always be exceptions to the rule. But something like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” doesn’t happen everyday.

- CCF, February 2006