>>89717415I've had this theory in back pocket for a long time.
Family Guy asks you to care about it's reprehensible characters whereas Sunny embraces their characters shamelessness to full comedic effect.
Just about every episode of FG has a moment near the end where one character apologises to another
>I'm so sorry [blank]>I just got so caught up in [blank] I forgot what was really importantThey're asking us to care about these characters who week after week, usually in the same episode, have done horrible things to one another. These apologies are especially unsatisfying because you know the characters will be their same selfish selves next week. There's no point to them.
Scenes like the one where Quagmire shames Brian or Meg shames her family are just begging us to take them seriously. And let's not forget the Brian and Stewie locked in the bank episode. The show desperately wants to be taken seriously but can’t escape itself.
The analogy someone used was imagine if at the end of the Three Stooges, Moe realised how badly he’d been treating Larry and Curly, apologised and told them they were his best pals and he wouldn’t give them up for anything. It would not only stop the comedy dead in it’s tracks but would feel incongruous with the abuse he’s been dishing out earlier.
It’s Always Sunny never does this. If a character apologises to another, they’re faking it for their own hidden motives. The show never asks us to forgive the characters who are basically unforgivable. They never ask us to take these characters seriously, they ask us to laugh at their schemes because it's a comedy.
TLDR; Family Guys pathetic attempts as sincerity undercut the comedy.
