When someone asked the r/television subreddit why people didn't seem to like "Family Guy" anymore, the most consistent answer given was that the show's quality, much like that of many television series that remain on air for a long time, had declined with age. r/randomnightmare wrote, "This downward trend of the quality has been going on for years and isn't something that just showed up recently, at least for me."
u/GeorgeLuasHasNoChin, like others, compared "Family Guy" to "The Simpsons," but for different reasons than you'd expect: "Much like the Simpsons, the early seasons were much better in quality and the writing was alot [sic] tighter and clever," they wrote. In fact, the observation from u/BryceKKelly that newer "Family Guy" is "following its own format in the way that a copycat show completely missing the point might" is similar to criticisms later "Simpsons" episodes would receive.
Other Redditors noticed that the cutaway gags, which were so distinctive that they were parodied on "South Park," lost their freshness. u/JaredUnzipped noticed how "the show just became too reliant upon that one gimmick," and u/amorousCephalopod summed it up: "The cutaway formula grew old incredibly fast."
