Family Guy lyrics

December 14, 2004 10:47 PM

"Laugh and cry" or "effin' cry" [mi]

Apparently my partner and I aren't the only one to have this debate. Whenever the show comes on, I can't help but sing along with the theme music. Whenever Stewie sings, I always sing "effin' cry" . My partner found it endearing, so I kept singing it that way. When we rented the series three DVDs and watched it with captioning on, they said, "laugh and cry". I was crushed. I continued to sing "effin' cry" nonetheless.

The DVD commentary by Seth MacFarlane should be the definitive word. During a series one episode, he makes note of the debate and says it's "laugh and cry". The Brian's Bar FAQ mentions this very debate and that they changed the intro to make it abundantly clear he says "laugh and cry". There's no doubt listening to the provided sample of the theme song on "The Effin Cry Debate" page for the third season that he says "laugh and cry". There's also no doubt that the songs changed between season two and three.

I had lost hope and conceded that I don't use closed captioning to solve silly debates. (In fact, I always watch TV with CC on.) Tonight, I was merrily singing along while watching a rerun from TBS on Tivo. I was bouncing along, just about to render my best version of "effin' cry" when closed captioning revealed to me the line "effin' cry", exactly as it appears in the image on "The Effin Cry Debate" page. I became so overjoyed that I pointed it out to my not nearly as amused partner. We watched it many times. We could only conclude the obvious. That's what the caption said.

I'm curious to know what gives. I assume it's a closed captioning mistake given the official lyrics say "laugh and cry". Yet there's no indication that the captioning was in error in my search for an explanation. Does a third party provide the transcript? Is there someone with the sense of humor doing the closed captioning? Is there a reason Fox may have given Mr. MacFarlane a gag order regarding the use of the word "effin"? Can anyone confirm what the captions say on their copy of the same episode on the DVD PAL and NTSC releases?

I'm aware that the CC can contain mistakes, mostly looking like line noise though sometimes they are censor mistakes. I regularly see unedited transcripts featuring words that should garner a nice FCC fine if spoken.

posted by sequential to media & arts (37 comments total)

My friend Kristine thought it was "effin' cry" too, and it cracked her right the heck up. I felt like the Grinch to tell her she was wrong. I had no idea there was, like, a debate.
posted by kindall at 11:23 PM on December 14, 2004

I watched the intro just now on [adult swim] with closed captioning on. It had "laugh and cry" but to me Stewie always says "effin cry".
posted by birdherder at 11:37 PM on December 14, 2004

It's been "effin' cry" every time I've heard it. *shrug*
posted by rushmc at 11:56 PM on December 14, 2004

What's the question here? Is there a question?
posted by LimePi at 11:56 PM on December 14, 2004

/me shrugs.

I don't get it. ASK MeFi. Rince and Repeat.
posted by erratic frog at 11:57 PM on December 14, 2004

Oh and type RINSE properly too. (and actually LOOK at the preview!)
posted by erratic frog at 11:58 PM on December 14, 2004

I've watched both box sets multiple times and have always heard 'laugh and cry.'
posted by sre71 at 12:22 AM on December 15, 2004

What's the question here? Is there a question? (1)

I don't get it. (2)

There is a question. The front page lead in contains a question, absent a question mark. The more inside contains a lengthy description of what I know and some additional questions in the closing paragraph of regular text.

• Does a third party provide the transcript?
• Is there someone with the sense of humor doing the closed captioning?
• Is there a reason Fox may have given Mr. MacFarlane a gag order regarding the use of the word "effin"?
• Can anyone confirm what the captions say on their copy of the same episode on the DVD PAL and NTSC releases?

Given the nature of my writing style, I had considered this as possibly belonging in the blue. However, at the heart of it is a sincere desire to know what's going on. None of the links qualify as "best of the web". Lastly, the reason I posted was hoping to find someone might watch the same episode on the retail version of the DVD with CC on. Alternatively, someone may be familiar with the debate and have an opinion or other relevant information.
posted by sequential at 12:37 AM on December 15, 2004

Well, w/r/t closed captioning, it depends.
posted by LimePi at 12:42 AM on December 15, 2004

Stewie was the only reason I ever watched that show.

It WAS 'effin cry' and most definitely changed at some point.
posted by kamylyon at 1:42 AM on December 15, 2004

I have no idea how anyone could mistake what Stewie is singing for "effin' cry" unless they were watching the opening titles under water with cotton wool in their ears and a big Scandinavian man shouting oafishly at them about some kind of wonderful new axle grease he's just invented, and even then it's a bit of a stretch.
posted by Savvas at 4:48 AM on December 15, 2004

First series was effin' cry, changed in later series to laugh and cry. Can't remember where I read that though.
posted by Orange Goblin at 5:14 AM on December 15, 2004

Seth MacFarline says repeatedly on the commentaries that it's "laugh and cry"
posted by falconred at 6:37 AM on December 15, 2004

It sounds like effin' cry to me though I can see it being laugh and cry with a false accent. I can also see it being effin' cry but claiming it's laugh and cry so the censors won't get their panties in a knot. I'm not gonna lose a whole lot of sleep over it.
posted by substrate at 7:10 AM on December 15, 2004

What substrate said. In later episodes, which should be airing on TBS starting in late January, the closed captioning on the opening sequence have changed to match the officially sanctioned lyric. When the show was attempting to tame itself down just a little in order to save its skin, the lyric was changed, and MacFarlane doesn't acknowledge it for his own reasons. (To say that MacFarlane marches to the beat of his own drum section is the understatement of the week, at least.)

I don't think that there's any real purpose in debating the matter, however. Hear what you want to hear, sing what you want to sing. Half the time you'll be right, the other half of the time, you'll have had your own laugh. No harm, no foul, no reason for anyone to get into a twist either way.
posted by Dreama at 7:39 AM on December 15, 2004

It changes for I think the last season only where it's clearly "laugh and cry", before that I always heard "effin cry"
posted by dagnyscott at 8:07 AM on December 15, 2004

I always assumed it was "laugh and cry", but I just found a .wav file of the theme here: http://timstvshowcase.com/familyguy.html and it's unmistakenly "eff'in cry".
posted by ewagoner at 8:17 AM on December 15, 2004

I checked it on Tivo. There's no way, in this particular case, that it can be construed as "laugh and cry." And "effin' cry" is not something I would accidentally hear anyway, as it's not a usage that I or anyone in my region uses.
posted by rushmc at 10:19 AM on December 15, 2004

I am positive that it is "effin' cry" for at least the first season, and "laugh and cry" starting some time in the second season.

My wife figures it was always "laugh and cry," but I think she's mis-remembering.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:39 AM on December 15, 2004

It would be out of character for Stewie to say "effin" in that context. It's too uncultured for his tastes. Therefore I can only conclude that it is a botched rendering of "laugh and cry" (which really makes more sense in context anyway).
posted by Galvatron at 11:26 AM on December 15, 2004

no, it isn't too uncultured for Stewie to say 'effin'. Stewie likes to shock.
posted by kamylyon at 11:31 AM on December 15, 2004

Sure he likes to shock, but would he stoop so far as to use a lame PC version of the F-word? I think not. He'd go all the way.
posted by Galvatron at 11:35 AM on December 15, 2004

Seth MacFarline says repeatedly on the commentaries that it's "laugh and cry"

Sure. And this line has no sexual connotation whatsoever: "I sit through this and later tonight I get anal. You hear me? No matter how neat I want the house you have to clean it."

It's effin' cry. The lyrics work better for Stewie's character: he wouldn't ever laugh at Peter's jokes. He'd find them positively flat, belabored and tiresome. So much it makes him 'effin cry. He wouldn't say "fucking" cry, because, first off, they'd have to CENSORED every single opening montage, and second, because he's a sophisticate and that language is beneath him. Unless he's being ironical, though his tone in the opening song is far more exasperated.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:41 AM on December 15, 2004

"effin cry" is hardly considered more sophisticated than "fucking cry," at least not in the circles I run in. It's a lame cop-out. Out of character. Has he used the term anywhere else in the series? To my recollection, it's all "blast," "damn," "testicular fortitute," etc.
posted by Galvatron at 11:46 AM on December 15, 2004

I hear it as "effin' cry" but my husband hears it as "laugh and cry". I think it's in the ear of the beholder.
posted by tracicle at 12:02 PM on December 15, 2004

I think it's in the ear of the beholder.

Did you listen to the .wav I linked? There's no question it's "effin". Or was when the file was created.
posted by ewagoner at 1:07 PM on December 15, 2004

a big Scandinavian man shouting oafishly at them about some kind of wonderful new axle grease he's just invented

Well, that's what you get for trying to watch Family Guy and Sheep in the Big City at the same time.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:11 PM on December 15, 2004

Did you listen to the .wav I linked? There's no question it's "effin". Or was when the file was created.

Are you kidding? He clearly annunciates the L, you'd have to be deaf (effin' deaf, perhaps) not to hear it. Is there some confusion with his accent perhaps? Seriously, no offense, but the L is so fucking clear that it makes me worry for the rest of you.
posted by Savvas at 4:29 PM on December 15, 2004

*effin' cries*
posted by jonmc at 4:58 PM on December 15, 2004

I'm sure it's just a closed captioning error. The people who write closed captions don't have access to original scripts or anything like that; they're listening along with us, and are just as fallible as we are. I've seen tons of mistakes in closed captions.
posted by painquale at 5:43 PM on December 15, 2004

I'm sure it's just a closed captioning error.

This is what I had assumed. Listening to them side by side has convinced me otherwise.

Seriously, no offense, but the L is so fucking clear that it makes me worry for the rest of you.

The following are WAV (~285k each) files of the approximately 1.6 seconds of the song that contain the phrase in question. Listen to Season 1. It very clearly says "effin' cry". Now, listen to Season 3. It very clearly says "laugh and cry". In fact, the voices are audibly different, though likely the same singer, Seth MacFarlane.
posted by sequential at 12:34 AM on December 16, 2004

sequential: thank you for clearing that up. I have always clearly heard "effin' cry" because I have only seen the Season 1/2 DVDs. You have confirmed my beliefs.
posted by quasistoic at 1:20 AM on December 16, 2004

Great. Thanks to you people, I'm seriously considering running a time-frequency analysis. On a cartoon theme song.
posted by Galvatron at 2:35 AM on December 16, 2004

Well, MeFites may be curious to learn that I have been friends with people at the Media Access Group at WGBH (né the Caption Center) since the late '70s. They captioned all the Family Guy episodes for first run. (Not for DVD subpictures, which was farmed out to some horrid foreign operator that doesn't know the first thing.)

Standards for captioning are nonexistent, which is why I am trying to set up a research project to develop them. It is not true that captioners never have an original script to work with; for feature films, it is the norm, actually. However, even the Caption Center's standards have been in such rapid decline that I can no longer keep up with the mistakes. I can't keep up with the mistakes on The Simpsons alone.

On the various reruns of Family Guy (a notably uneven and overrated program, though I did learn that I tend to fashion myself after two characters there: "Try for Brian, end up as Stewie"), I've seen the completely wrong and infuriating "effin' cry" over and over again, and the clearly correct "laugh and cry" in the majority of cases.

I listen each and every time, and each and every time the line as delivered, in Seth MacFarlane's enunciation (he voices Stewie!), is "laugh and cry," which, I see nobody has noted here, is the only plausible conclusion of that sentence in the first place.

Thus, my esteemed, underpaid colleagues at the Caption Center fucked up completely, possibly for an entire television season. There's always the claim that the original caption files are corrected in case the program is re-encoded, but those corrections never make it to air (viz. syndicated Simpsons reruns, where I keep rewatching errors I had personally reported years ago). Hence, in every scenario save the extraordinarily unlikely event that the original episodes are re-encoded, you're going to be reading an incorrect caption on Family Guy.

And by the way, when there's an enormous mismatch between caption and speech, the usual cause is postpostproduction sweetening: The producers change the audio after the show is sent for captioning. I saw it again just last night.
posted by joeclark at 11:27 AM on December 16, 2004

joeclark, thank you for the detailed explanation. It's exactly what I had hoped to find.

I listen each and every time, and each and every time the line as delivered, in Seth MacFarlane's enunciation (he voices Stewie!), is "laugh and cry,"

Do you have an explanation for the audible difference I highlight in this post?
posted by sequential at 12:44 PM on December 16, 2004

The audible difference in the theme songs isn't really useful evidence, because it's easily explained in favor of either position. Either the vocals were re-recorded to change the words, or the vocals were re-recorded to make the original words more clear.
posted by Galvatron at 1:44 PM on December 16, 2004

The .wav files don't have enough of the audio before and after the (clearly different) renditions to be genuinely useful. Nonetheless, they both say "laugh and cry."
posted by joeclark at 1:42 PM on December 17, 2004