The point of this comparison is that Macfarlane has clearly gone to town thinking of as many throwaway gags with a Western aspect as he can. Naylor said to the writers present: 'It doesn't matter how many one-liners you think of, it's not going to solve the problem. Doug Naylor, who co-created the original series, recalled being in a room of writers from The Simpsons and Cheers, and being berated for wanting to work on character construction rather than coming up with gags. While not without brief moments of coherence or spark, the film is largely unfunny, unfocussed, and squanders all the best ideas for the cheapest gag on which it can lay its hands.Ī good way of illustrating the central problem with this film is to be found in Dwarfing USA, a DVD documentary about the ill-fated American version of Red Dwarf. Just as was with Ted, so it is with Macfarlane's second film, A Million Ways to Die in the West (hereafter A Million Ways). It's very tempting to treat any film project as merely an excuse to get in more of the same material, or to allow the jokes to run on for longer than a 20-minute episode would usually permit. Wherever you stand on Macfarlane's televisual endeavours, translating from one medium to another is notoriously difficult.

For some, he is a witty, ingenious writer and performer with a gift for puncturing egos for others, he is nasty, derivative, mean-spirited and crass, whose work lacks the narrative coherency of his betters. The continuing, often baffling success of Family Guy and American Dad! have made him as successful as the creators of The Simpsons, earning him millions of fans and an equal number of critics, both professional and public. Seth Macfarlane has rapidly become of the most divisive comedians of the modern era.

Watch 1000 ways to die