I have found a new series to watch. I don’t watch many things these days but I’m fond of cartoons. The usual ones like Family Guy or Rick and Morty of course, I’m a fan of Bob’s Burgers and the new series by Loren Bouchard; Central Park, which is a musical of all things. I stumbled upon F is for Family a few days ago and I like it. It is based upon the childhood of comedian Bill Burr. I don’t actually know much about him and I suspect he’s someone far more famous in America than here. I simply recognise his name from the odd Joe Rogan podcast that I’ve seen but not listened to. Maybe I will now though. I think I may even find some his comedy and watch it. I hope he’s good otherwise it’ll just spoil the cartoon, it’s whether the risk of not improving it is worth it.
He grew up in an Irish American family in the 1970s when people were a bit tougher and life seemed also a little harder while still immortalised. What’s good is how he creates the characters not how they would have been generally but it seems how he saw them. His big brother is angry and little sister a devil, his mother loving and father scary. There’s a childlike understanding of who each character is.
The seventies is a cool period for cartoons because it’s so easy to be creative, especially in a comedic sense. It is a nostalgic, but tough period in modern history. The strange thing is it is not mine because 1970s America would surely have been very different to the British 70s. They both seem to involve a lot of hardship and strife. No jobs, no fuel. High food prices. But people starting to rebel a little, live life. This could just be the version portrayed in television and the vast majority just got on with a life which was uneventful. F is for Family seemingly is set in a period of Bill Burrs childhood which was relatively intense enough to need to write a series on. It revolves around the father losing his job but with elements of it being honourable, and the subsequent liberation of the mother as she has to go out to work. Yet it is also expresses the uneventful moments in subtle ways, like all of this was just normal. It is very smartly put together.
Observations and Misunderstandings 