Researchers Conclude Family Guy is Probably Supposed to be a Comedy

Baltimore, MD--A cross-disciplinary team of experts at Johns Hopkins University has completed a year-long study of the television show Family Guy, concluding that the program "is probably supposed to be a comedy."

"For a long time we were thrown off the trail by the absence of humor," said Dr. Madeup Funnyname, who led the study. "Occasionally one of us would detect content that he believed was intended to be funny, but only one--never a quorum. And the parameters of the study clearly stated that content could not be classified 'humorous' except by majority decision.

"But then we realized that we weren't seeing the forest for the trees. I mean, it's a cartoon, right? Cartoons are usually funny. And there's the talking dog and the diabolic talking baby. These are leading indicators of the comedy genre. Also, the husband seems to be modeled after Homer Simpson, the main character in a program we are quite certain is a comedy.

"Finally, though, we arrived at our conclusion by process of elimination. Family Guy is clearly not science fiction or a police procedural. It's not a game show; we're certain of that, too. It's not engaging or compelling in any way, so that rules out drama.

"In the end, we had it narrowed down to either a comedy or a news program. At that point, frankly, we guessed."

The team will take a well-earned month off before tackling its next assignment: determining what exactly American Dad is.