Reanimating Clue: Family Guys And Then There Were Fewer as Paratext to a Cult Classic

Family Guy Season 9 “And Then There Were Fewer” Still.

Family Guy’s ninth-season premiere, “And Then There Were Fewer” (ATTWF), is an excellent case study for observing paratexts in practice and understanding how they contribute to a cult film. Specifically, “And Then There Were Fewer” is a parody of the praised cult classic, *Clue *(1985), that remains culturally alive by its condition to be sustained by the paratexts.

Paratexts offer meaning and serve as sites of interpretation for audiences. Clue is a murder-mystery comedy that invites six unrelated strangers to a mansion for dinner. The host is notably killed, and the search for the murderer is among the group. The film’s paratextual companion, ATTWF, references the film and introduces it to an existing television audience. This audience engages in speculative consumption on their way to potentially consuming the film itself. While audiences who have already seen the film can reflect on the episode’s unique ability to reintroduce it. As Jonathan Gray suggests in Show Sold Separately, paratexts actively shape a text’s meaning and identity; they are not simply add-ons. They create texts, manage them, and fill them with meaning (Gray 2010, 6). ATTWF functions much like the paratext Gray describes here, contributing to Clue’s cult status by introducing it to audiences and attempting to shape their beliefs and thoughts, while reinforcing those already loved by fans. In this paper, I will explore the role of Family Guy’s season nine premiere in strategically utilizing its audience and established characters to serve as a paratext to Clue while contributing to its cult following.

To preface, it is relevant to briefly understand the history of Clue’s cult status; it emerged in the late 80s and 90s, and was rediscovered on home video and cable television. This followed its financial failure during its 1985 theatrical release. The film originally had three separate endings, and theatres played one of them. This ultimately suggests that different people across America were watching one of three different endings. Clue contained campy themes through its intentional exaggeration and over-the-top plot, ultimately catching on with a devoted following through repeated viewings over the years. Importantly, by the time ATTWF aired on Fox in 2010, to approximately 9 million viewers, Clue was already considered a cult classic. Importantly, The Family Guy paratext introduced the tropes of Clue and the text itself to a new generation of media consumers. Therefore, it is useful to examine how ATTWF functions as a paratextual source in relation to its cult-film counterpart.

Firstly, to understand how “And Then There Were Fewer” functions as a paratext to Clue, we must examine the episode as a text in relation to Clue. The nearly one-hour-long Family Guy episode captures the visual and structural similarities of Clue through production design, wardrobe, narrative, music, and dialogue tone. The episode opens with the arrival at an eerie mansion, “Hill House,” situated on a tall hill, with an aggressive Queen Anne exterior and a Victorian Gothic interior. Guests slowly arrive at the mansion, to be met by a maid and or butler, much like the film. All the characters are dressed in suits or dresses, confused about why they have been summoned. All of these elements set the tone of a strange, lingering doubt also observed in the film. This doubt is the same one that arises when we are unsure who the killer is, or when the characters roam the halls of the mansion in groups, unsure of what they might find around any given corner, in both the paratext and text.

However, in the paratext, we also see a checkered floor, gargoyles, multiple landscape paintings on the walls, and everyone receiving nearly identical invitation letters to the mansion. These elements in the paratext are very similar to those in the main text. It is important to note that all of these elements are strategically implemented to allow the Family Guy episode to serve as a parody of Clue, one that extracts the original DNA from the film and fuses it with the Family Guy universe. Through the fusion of the two universes, the episode becomes paratextual, showing a glimpse of what the Clue text is and what it offers. In the Gray reading, he identifies a particular category of paratext known as the “in media res paratext.” This is the paratext that works to redirect the view of the main text following the initial reaction of the paratext (Gray 2010, 35). This encounter often occurs before interacting with the main text itself, leading to the use of an interpretation formed through examining the paratext. The audience members who watch ATTWF before seeing Clue are exposed to a theme and concepts encompassed in the main text that are portrayed half-fused within the Family Guy universe. With only half of the material that makes up the main text in the paratext, the audience member is still made aware of key characteristics that are likely exemplified in the main text. These characteristics are encountering an eerie mansion, multiple guests invited to a dinner, a murderer or several, whereby the paratext primes the audience member to always stay watching, no one can be trusted.

This is important because the paratext functions not just as an in media res quality, but also to cleverly reinforce the cult status that arose from the main text’s multiple endings and repeated viewings. The cult contribution is exemplified through this paratext by using the Family Guy audience’s fan base and the characters’ comedic sensibilities to generate viewing patterns similar to those of the main text. This allows TV audiences to formulate a more opinionated representation of the main text through the qualities of intermixing two distinct universes into one. How Family Guy is uniquely positioned to set up its paratext and enhance the primary text’s cult status among Family Guy audiences, I explore in the following paragraphs.

Secondly, in the paratext, the similarities embedded within it align more closely with production elements of the main text. These production similarities allow the paratext to more accurately depict a semi-representational experience of the main text. For example, to evoke claustrophobia and intrigue, eerie, mysterious music is played by traditional orchestral instruments, like in Clue. Family Guy doesn’t tend to incorporate this mysterious, tension-building style of music into its other comedic episodes as it does here. The instruments develop tension with violin, brass, and metallic sounds that overlap smoothly to build urgency and suspense. These are the same instruments heard in moments of tension in Clue when characters roam the halls of the dark mansion. Furthermore, the lighting of candles, lamps, and minimal overhead lighting is a direct homage to the film’s cinematographic style. These choices will shape viewers ‘ expectations and attitudes towards Clue when watching ATTWF. Relevantly, in shaping expectations and attitudes, the paratext is uniquely set up through the strategic intermixing of Family Guy’s characters with Clue’s production and narrative elements. The Family Guy characters in the paratext are not new characters, but rather known for their gags and moments that intertwine with pop culture. The characters are often characterized by humorous personalities and relationships within the ensemble across the show. The characters in the paratext are built on normative tropes, like Brian the dog and Stewie the baby, who are just slightly more self-aware to seem like the most reasonable characters in any situation. While Peter resembles a childlike persona in an adult’s body, amongst others in the ensemble, respectively. The Family Guy ensemble functions much like the one in Clue, which carries comedic weight even as murder occurs, body by body. The comedic weight from the characters in the paratext, and comedic sensibilities in Clue, carry across both texts, serving as a bridge to each other. This connection allows audiences who consume Family Guy to be more inclined to favour Clue. This idea closely resembles Gray’s points, whereby he suggests paratexts are like advertisements. They simply exist because it is unknown whether a product will be successful. The goal, therefore, is to create an identity rather than a product (Gray 2010, 27). In this instance, ATTWF uses humour to create a positive viewing experience (identity) for the audience, rather than focusing on its plot (brand). These moments are evident throughout the episode, for instance, when everyone meets back in the dining room to reevaluate and discuss what they found. Quagmire, an established character, without looking, says, “Wait a minute, something’s not right here,” and senses one woman missing in the room filled with people; he is a character obsessed with women (Family Guy 2010, 00:30:53).

To the typical Family Guy audience, this moment is funny; it’s rooted in Family Guy humour, and only someone like Quagmire could pick something like this up so quickly. Moments like this are used to sell an identity rather than a product. This puts Family Guy’s ability to use the ensemble to its advantage. This strategy benefits it as a paratext, as viewers often look favourably upon the episode because it brings all the recurring characters into one episode, where their character tropes collide. In turn, the integration of Clue’s plot progresses, which is found humorous as the characters take it on, leading to a positive outlook on Clue as a text. This intermixing is crucial and serves to cue television audiences who may have never seen Clue to seek it out. Therefore, television audiences who view this episode first may be primed to be more favourable towards Clue than those who do. This is directly due to the intermixing of the Family Guy universe as a paratext for Clue, the film. This priming occurs because viewers have spent time with the characters across countless episodes, ultimately looking upon them more fondly, like nostalgia. When Peter makes a joke, it reflects his personality across hundreds of episodes, one that is not tiring but enjoyable. This works because the jokes in ATTWF are tailored to the show’s comedic sensibility, while Clue, as a text, grounds itself similarly but in a slightly different way. The paratext, therefore, benefits from Family Guy’s already rich character history and allows the viewer to react like they would to any other episode, often leading to a positive outlook on Clue in this case. Therefore, priming a TV audience to appreciate Clue positively before watching it contributes to the cult following that appreciates its witty, campy style.

In conclusion, Family Guy’s season nine premiere is a unique paratextual source that allows the viewer to interpret the main text as humorous amid a suspenseful murder tale. Through this examination, it is clear that the ATTWF serves as an ongoing paratextual source that allows Clue to culturally suffice across newer generations. The paratext nicely encapsulates the main text through production similarities, notably in the house’s geography, the strange dinner invites, and the campy comedic tone maintained in moments of dire suspense. With ATTWF’s attempt to reframe Clue, its contribution to its cult following is sustained by actively producing a version that adds value by embedding character tropes that reflect the Family Guy universe, then simply reflecting the textual narrative, like Clue’s plot. This idea is the epitome of what Gray suggests paratexts do: offer meanings and interpretations (Gray 2010, 25) . TV audiences experience Clue through iconic characters built over hundreds of episodes, in which the characters on screen work to build identity through moments that are comedically entertaining. Through the paratext’s successful mimicry of the main text, television audiences are exposed to the cult characteristics that define Clue. Ultimately spreading its tenets within the nearly hour-long Family Guy paratext. This paratext deliberately and strategically navigates the intermixing of two universes, leading to a positive interpretation of the main text for a Family Guy audience of nearly 9 million viewers. This audience may have never otherwise encountered the world of Clue. Therefore, the Family Guy episode primes TV audiences to associate the show’s humorous characters with the midst of an unusual plot, producing a special episode that parodies a cult classic and reintroduces it into pop culture for a new generation of media consumers.

Written by Nava Medikonda