'FAMILY GUY' Stewie movie goes heavy on the tasteless humor

Direct-to-DVD movie is a spliced together collection of three unaired episodes.
By ED BARK
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Boffo DVD sales for its first three seasons put "Family Guy" back on Fox after cancellation struck in 2002.
It's an amazing but true story that's turned a bit sour lately with two cash-milkers -- "Family Guy: The Freakin' Sweet Collection" and now next Tuesday's release of "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story."
Billed as "all-new, outrageous, uncensored!" this direct to DVD "movie" is more or less a spliced together collection of three unaired episodes. Continuity or even a semblance of logic has never been a priority with "Family Guy." Still, surly baby Stewie's search for his real father turns out to be less coherent than Bob Dylan trying his hand at ventriloquism.
Creator Seth MacFarlane and company have bookended "Untold Story" with before-and-after sequences tied to the film's big premiere at a Quahog, R.I., multiplex. Perhaps you'll wonder why Stewie (voiced by MacFarlane) gleefully snaps the neck of an Entertainment Weekly reporter who dares to ask him a question along the red carpet. In a commentary track, MacFarlane explains that EW "was not very nice to us" at the time this segment was put together. He hastens to add that the magazine subsequently made amends.
Hit and miss
"Family Guy," lately a key player in Fox's Sunday night lineup, remains a hit-and-miss blend of serrated pop culture snippets and various coarse goings-on in the Griffin household. But this latest DVD offshoot has way too high a percentage of leaden, tasteless humor, emitting a foul Pauly Shore-like, let's-make-a-buck "Bio-Dome" smell.
One of the lower blows has Stewie telling Brian the talking dog: "Did you know Lance Armstrong is dating Sheryl Crow? You know, it really speaks to her character that she can get past the whole 'He had cancer' thing and still find him sexually attractive. It really speaks to her character. I respect that."
X"Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story" is 88 minutes long and retails for $29.98.