How Med figured it'd go:
Did you remember this episode from memory or something
The bit's like nine seconds long, even children remember Family Guy's side reel.
Usually in plot writing to keep the audience engaged they will do A-Plot and B-Plot, with A-Plot being the main point of the episode and B-Plot being the distraction to keep them from getting bored of the A-Plot.
Family Guy at it's launch tried some odd ideas with the structure, in their case having enough cutaway gags to be worth it's own reel, which they then blended with small quips from the rest of the family to keep the audience engaged (they stopped being as guilty of it later in their career). This worked well with the more ADD crowd which, consequently, did well with children and teenagers over how it could hold their attention and even lead to them quoting it at other people, as rather than two plots at once they tried running a single evolving plot while the side-stuff could be nearly anything. They basically Geico'd the B-Roll and it seemed to work well for them.
This when compared to how cutaway gags worked in similar shows like The Critic, a show where they wasted time on framing the presentation formally, Family Guy's approach was a breakthrough strategy that lent to other shows adopting similar strategies (like Robot Chicken), allowing them to make commentary on multiple subjects at once, rather than something like South Park's single comment-per-episode formula. Once they recognized that they had two different audiences, one who liked their older stuff and another who liked their meme formula, they split into two different shows to cater to each of them.
All right so I have seen a few episodes of Family Guy, but I didn't come to your conclusion about the subplots.
What is your conclusion over it?
Incidentally is this all your analysis or borrowed from a film critic site. If yours maybe you have a future in film.
"Everyone's a critic".
You need a gimmick to even be noticed in it.
What's GEICO'ed mean?
Geico have had commercials for years where they do a fairly random, bordering on absurd, presentation of something like a contradiction or sight gag. Their goal was to have it grab their attention and be memorable, which it definitely accomplished by having the commercials be wild and off topic. This led to a lot of other commercial companies trying similar strategies for a few years with some still persisting into today, but they tend to lack the same eye for humor that came from the original people.
Here's three of them to give you an idea (the first one literally a Family Guy style cutaway):
So what you are saying is that Family Guy has ancillary plots. Geico has absurd, non-sequiturs (you say "off-topic")
You have written a lot to say just that (Chapo's joke about maximum 60 keystrokes). Tell me more about how you see Family Guy maybe, assuming I am missing something in your analysis.
I’ll have to watch the Geico “camera cut-aways” later
So what you are saying is that Family Guy has ancillary plots. Geico has absurd, non-sequiturs (you say "off-topic")
You have written a lot to say just that (Chapo's joke about maximum 60 keystrokes).
This isn't Twitter, anyone capable at a high school level should be able to read more than that.
Tell me more about how you see Family Guy maybe, assuming I am missing something in your analysis.
What part of it's throwing you?
So what you are saying is that Family Guy has ancillary plots. Geico has absurd, non-sequiturs (you say "off-topic")
Yes, ancillary— I used it correctly.
Means “supporting” Here’s the word ancillary used with regard to film characters
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/3ntz96/what_ancillary_character_is_the_most_important_to/
