Jump to content

Weight Gain Story Lines (TV & Movies)


Chris9788

Recommended Posts

On 4/28/2019 at 4:24 PM, Danmead said:

All I know is it aired July 2003!

no new snl was filmed or aired in july 2003, so it would've been a re-run, making it a bit harder to try and track down, although even if you did know exactly which episode it was, I'm not certain I could find it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, teejers said:

Anyone happen to have any clips of Renata Celidonio when she was at her largest on a Brazilian TV show? Seems most clips were taken down 

Just read about her quickly, what a shame that she lost so much weight, she looks stunning in the "before" pics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Ms. LovelyMeow

So the Family Guy WG episode with Meg aired tonight and I was able to get a ton of screencaps. Long story short, Megs desire to become internet famous are made possible by her ability to eat extremely unhealthy food - this results in her eventually developing diabetes. Things come to a head when Meg has a morality conflict when she considers dropping her sponsor (an ineffective diabetes medication) when everyone at her school has become overweight as well:

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h36m20s441.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h36m41s200.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h37m22s819.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h37m59s210.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h38m06s291.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h38m30s919.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h38m54s751.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h39m10s549.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h39m45s844.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h39m52s065.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h39m58s432.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h40m37s593.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h40m45s334.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h41m38s219.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h41m44s526.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h42m03s905.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h42m20s719.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h43m21s009.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h43m49s290.png

vlcsnap-2019-05-05-21h44m09s454.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Ms. LovelyMeow
5 hours ago, NikeLove1986 said:

Was it better than the Lois episode @lovelymeow555

 

5 hours ago, John Smith said:

Are they trolling our community?


No and no. This was the first time I watched Family Guy in quite some time, and wow, there's been a huge drop off with every aspect of the show - there's a lot of signs that they're desperately trying to fill their 20 minute quota with scenes that have a single sight gag joke that should last 5 seconds topping off at around 25 - and even the animation is starting to suffer as well. The ending of the episode is just an prolonged exterior of the house as we hear the characters talking about the resolution of the episode inside for 2 minutes - it's incredibly lazy and there's no reason to have a shot lasting that long where nothing is happening, I'd be willing to bet that things got really tight near the end of the episode and they ran out of time so they put their voice-over behind a static shot and the audience is meant to play theater of the mind.  

I don't think they're trolling the community as much as running out of ideas for episodes, so weight gain tropes are going to come to the forefront - compare it to Sibling Rivalry where Lois' weight gain was the B-storyline and the A-storyline was Stewie's confrontation with his arch-rival; a character that had been established several episodes ago and now we were witness to his development as a worthy opponent, there was even a massive fight scene using a playground as an action setpiece, and you could tell the writers had gotten creative taking swings and see-saws and turning them into something that would better serve the battle - it's decisions like these that really show that they used to really take the time to really squeeze out all of the potential that they could for every scene. 
Compare it to the episode we had tonight and the B-storyline is that Brian is forced to get a new vehicle after totaling his old car. That's it. We have the established scene of Brian crashing his old car after falling asleep at the wheel (by the way, it's just one prolonged shot of Brian at the wheel slowly falling asleep so the animators just had to animate his eyes drooping and make sure that the background behind him kept moving - that's a minute of animation saved and episode time filled!) 
The next scene he's at the wrecking yard picking out his car, and they show off the Hummer by having it so exaggerated and huge that when it shows up on the scene Brian and Stewie look up in awe as the vehicle drives safely over top of them, the underbelly seemingly going on forever (get it, because Hummer's are big - and also, we save time keeping two characters frozen while the underside of the car keeps panning for 30 seconds...) 
Brian slowly becomes a 'Hummer guy' and in the end loves the car so much that Stewie prevents his old car from being returned to him so he can keep the Hummer. 
That's it. That's our B-storyline - at this point I think we can safely say that Family Guy is out of shit. 
Similarly the weight gain storyline has some moments (chugging the corn syrup for instance) but on the whole it's an idea born of necessity, it feels so forced and heavy-handed because the writers need a way to showcase the dangers of fame and the influence said fame has on your followers.

Let's talk about pacing for a little bit as well, because this episode runs like a chronic-narcoleptic whose just realized he's late for a train. Sibling Rivalry's weight gain was a gradual shift - each scene with Lois we saw her a little bigger than last time until it naturally arrived at its conclusion - there were no jumps and we actively knew what her thoughts on the entire experience was (spite for lack of sex). Compare it to Girl, Internetted where Meg has one scene where she's skinny in front of the fridge, and after one cut-away to the B-storyline we're back to Meg and now her character is at her biggest, and any gravity of the situation is ultimately lost because the scene is framed in a really surreal joke, so your audience is too taken aback by a 'Killer Peter made of ice cream' rather than Meg's new form. 

Here's how the scene should have worked - you return from the Hummer scene on a montage of Meg eating for the Internet, we've got quick cuts of her eating unhealthy food juxtaposed with her viewcounts and follows increasing steadily - there's a chance to show off animation here (after all, its a format where you get to play around with things you can't do in reality, so she can dig into some really far-out portions).
And here's the rub - we visually get to see her transform over the course of the montage because its showcasing the passage of time rather than the smashcut we got in the episode. What's more, you can have a final scene of Meg in the bathroom stepping on the scale while chewing on something like a stick of butter - we hear the scale whirr as the camera looks up at her to register the shock she sees the numbers climb, which turns into a look of reluctance. Suddenly though, her phone goes off, vibrating in her other hand - we see her check the phone and her face lights up as she sees her followers climbing higher and higher - with newfound resolve she bites into the stick of butter and in that scene we've established character development and a stronger sense of character motivation (We see that Meg is ultimately swayed by her fame when its just effecting her body, but the same can't be said for when she sees how her fame effects other people). 

That's how early Family Guy would have done it, but unfortunately now we have a series that has gone on way past its prime, I can only fault the writers so much though, since there's a point where you do become fatigued when a certain number of episodes have to be out and there's an element of apathy when you know that the shows been on a decline for years and that you're still going to get renewed because the show has strong brand loyalty.

I think one of the stand-outs that this episode had was the interaction with her old friends, but even that lacks potential and the writers know it, having the characters comment on how if 'people remembered how they looked, they'd be shocked at how massive they appeared now' which highlights another problem in that Meg should have gotten to interact with more characters from her high school. Instead, the end of the episode just features generic fat students that have been created for this episode.  

00-04-13.thumb.jpg.fff75d4008a461bc6c6c80aabcea9c90.jpg

 They could have absolutely had interactions with pre-existing characters, especially ones that have a strained relationship with Meg like the 'popular girl' Connie D'Amico - instead of having her friends swoop in and deliver the moral of the story (which again is a sign of the declining writing on the show) you could have shown her popularity on the Internet directly translating to her popularity in real life - suddenly the girls who used to condescend to Meg are suddenly buddy-buddy and the show could have made it a point to show how these exchanges are incredibly transparent and that Meg is starting to sow the seeds of doubt when it comes to her impact on everyone around her. Again, rather than having a smashcut to the end where we see a gymnasium filled with obese stock characters, we could have similarly mirrored Megs gain in popularity to that of the entire student body of recognizable characters. 

A bit long-winded, but you did ask for my opinion...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting that Meg seems smaller than all the other characters that got fat in the episode, and she's kinda lumpy to start with.

Comparatively, Brian's recent cancer wife had a supermodel build and got really round really fast.

But Lois beats them all, I mean, she got HUGE.  

 

At this point I'm surprised there haven't been prevalent WG tropes on The Orville.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, RugDug said:

Interesting that Meg seems smaller than all the other characters that got fat in the episode, and she's kinda lumpy to start with.

Comparatively, Brian's recent cancer wife had a supermodel build and got really round really fast.

But Lois beats them all, I mean, she got HUGE.  

 

At this point I'm surprised there haven't been prevalent WG tropes on The Orville.

See now that you've mentioned that I was thinking the same thing, there should be a weight gain episode in Orville, I can imagine Seth Mcfarlane's character's ex wife gains weight from some alien mutation. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, lovelymeow555 said:

 


No and no. This was the first time I watched Family Guy in quite some time, and wow, there's been a huge drop off with every aspect of the show - there's a lot of signs that they're desperately trying to fill their 20 minute quota with scenes that have a single sight gag joke that should last 5 seconds topping off at around 25 - and even the animation is starting to suffer as well. The ending of the episode is just an prolonged exterior of the house as we hear the characters talking about the resolution of the episode inside for 2 minutes - it's incredibly lazy and there's no reason to have a shot lasting that long where nothing is happening, I'd be willing to bet that things got really tight near the end of the episode and they ran out of time so they put their voice-over behind a static shot and the audience is meant to play theater of the mind.  

I don't think they're trolling the community as much as running out of ideas for episodes, so weight gain tropes are going to come to the forefront - compare it to Sibling Rivalry where Lois' weight gain was the B-storyline and the A-storyline was Stewie's confrontation with his arch-rival; a character that had been established several episodes ago and now we were witness to his development as a worthy opponent, there was even a massive fight scene using a playground as an action setpiece, and you could tell the writers had gotten creative taking swings and see-saws and turning them into something that would better serve the battle - it's decisions like these that really show that they used to really take the time to really squeeze out all of the potential that they could for every scene. 
Compare it to the episode we had tonight and the B-storyline is that Brian is forced to get a new vehicle after totaling his old car. That's it. We have the established scene of Brian crashing his old car after falling asleep at the wheel (by the way, it's just one prolonged shot of Brian at the wheel slowly falling asleep so the animators just had to animate his eyes drooping and make sure that the background behind him kept moving - that's a minute of animation saved and episode time filled!) 
The next scene he's at the wrecking yard picking out his car, and they show off the Hummer by having it so exaggerated and huge that when it shows up on the scene Brian and Stewie look up in awe as the vehicle drives safely over top of them, the underbelly seemingly going on forever (get it, because Hummer's are big - and also, we save time keeping two characters frozen while the underside of the car keeps panning for 30 seconds...) 
Brian slowly becomes a 'Hummer guy' and in the end loves the car so much that Stewie prevents his old car from being returned to him so he can keep the Hummer. 
That's it. That's our B-storyline - at this point I think we can safely say that Family Guy is out of shit. 
Similarly the weight gain storyline has some moments (chugging the corn syrup for instance) but on the whole it's an idea born of necessity, it feels so forced and heavy-handed because the writers need a way to showcase the dangers of fame and the influence said fame has on your followers.

Let's talk about pacing for a little bit as well, because this episode runs like a chronic-narcoleptic whose just realized he's late for a train. Sibling Rivalry's weight gain was a gradual shift - each scene with Lois we saw her a little bigger than last time until it naturally arrived at its conclusion - there were no jumps and we actively knew what her thoughts on the entire experience was (spite for lack of sex). Compare it to Girl, Internetted where Meg has one scene where she's skinny in front of the fridge, and after one cut-away to the B-storyline we're back to Meg and now her character is at her biggest, and any gravity of the situation is ultimately lost because the scene is framed in a really surreal joke, so your audience is too taken aback by a 'Killer Peter made of ice cream' rather than Meg's new form. 

Here's how the scene should have worked - you return from the Hummer scene on a montage of Meg eating for the Internet, we've got quick cuts of her eating unhealthy food juxtaposed with her viewcounts and follows increasing steadily - there's a chance to show off animation here (after all, its a format where you get to play around with things you can't do in reality, so she can dig into some really far-out portions).
And here's the rub - we visually get to see her transform over the course of the montage because its showcasing the passage of time rather than the smashcut we got in the episode. What's more, you can have a final scene of Meg in the bathroom stepping on the scale while chewing on something like a stick of butter - we hear the scale whirr as the camera looks up at her to register the shock she sees the numbers climb, which turns into a look of reluctance. Suddenly though, her phone goes off, vibrating in her other hand - we see her check the phone and her face lights up as she sees her followers climbing higher and higher - with newfound resolve she bites into the stick of butter and in that scene we've established character development and a stronger sense of character motivation (We see that Meg is ultimately swayed by her fame when its just effecting her body, but the same can't be said for when she sees how her fame effects other people). 

That's how early Family Guy would have done it, but unfortunately now we have a series that has gone on way past its prime, I can only fault the writers so much though, since there's a point where you do become fatigued when a certain number of episodes have to be out and there's an element of apathy when you know that the shows been on a decline for years and that you're still going to get renewed because the show has strong brand loyalty.

I think one of the stand-outs that this episode had was the interaction with her old friends, but even that lacks potential and the writers know it, having the characters comment on how if 'people remembered how they looked, they'd be shocked at how massive they appeared now' which highlights another problem in that Meg should have gotten to interact with more characters from her high school. Instead, the end of the episode just features generic fat students that have been created for this episode.  

00-04-13.thumb.jpg.fff75d4008a461bc6c6c80aabcea9c90.jpg

 They could have absolutely had interactions with pre-existing characters, especially ones that have a strained relationship with Meg like the 'popular girl' Connie D'Amico - instead of having her friends swoop in and deliver the moral of the story (which again is a sign of the declining writing on the show) you could have shown her popularity on the Internet directly translating to her popularity in real life - suddenly the girls who used to condescend to Meg are suddenly buddy-buddy and the show could have made it a point to show how these exchanges are incredibly transparent and that Meg is starting to sow the seeds of doubt when it comes to her impact on everyone around her. Again, rather than having a smashcut to the end where we see a gymnasium filled with obese stock characters, we could have similarly mirrored Megs gain in popularity to that of the entire student body of recognizable characters. 

A bit long-winded, but you did ask for my opinion...

I mean, even "King Sized Homer" had a better build and delivery of the weight gain, and that was YEARS ago. This episode could have sent that up, borrowing the iconic towel rack scene, the weigh-in that you mentioned....the outline for a GREAT episode is there, FG was just way, way too lazy to use it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.