One of America’s favorite animated TV families, The Griffins, are back with 22 more hilarious, irreverent, and uncensored episodes of Family Guy in this Volume 12 DVD release. This collection covers the entire eleventh season of the series, which aired in 2012-2013. During that season, the series hit a milestone 200th episode, “Yug Ylimaf”, in which a time machine malfunction causes Brian and Stewie to get stuck in reverse time, revisiting some fun Family Guy moments from the past, but this time things are happening backwards.

Some of this season’s other outrageous plots for the Griffin family include climbing Mount Everest, getting launched into space, moving to a farm where they start cooking meth, cat-sitting for Quagmire, and experiencing the country club lifestyle. We also see Peter manipulating the Nielsen TV ratings system, converting to Islam, and going wild after being lost in the wilderness for 2 months. The season also finds Lois having a mid-life crisis, Lois getting a job as a sex line operator, Chris running away to live with Hebert, Meg dating a gay boy, Stewie on a mission to rescue Rupert, Brian & Stewie writing plays, and a “Sliding Doors” style trip to Vegas for Stewie and Brian. Elswhere in Quahog, we see Quagmire getting a hair transplant, Quagmire accidentally marrying a prostitute, Joe getting revenge on the man who shot him, the Mayor on trial for murder, and The Drunken Clam closing its doors.

The season also brings some holiday-themed episodes with Peter narrating his version of the Nativity story, and Valentine’s Day in Quahog. Along the way, we even get some cameos from some other animated characters—from American Dad, The Simpsons and King of the Hill—as well as visit from Cleveland Brown.

Some of this season’s guest stars include Elizabeth Banks, Ryan Reynolds, Mae Whitman, Jim Parsons, Gary Cole, Sofía Vergara, Giovanni Ribisi, Jessica Biel, Drew Barrymore, Julie Hagerty, Megan Hilty, Ralph Garman, Will Sasso, Emily Osment, Lucas Grabeel, Emma Roberts, Keir Gilchrist, Nana Visitor, Alex Breckenridge and Colin Ford. Plus, Jon Hamm, J.J. Abrams, Dick Wolf, Mark Burnett, Sandra Bernhard, Brian Williams, Cheryl Tiegs, Anne Murray Robert Loggia, Christine Baranski, Bill Maher, Tim Gunn, Nick Cannon, Sharon Osbourne all make appearances as themselves.

This DVD set looks and sounds amazing. I first watched the season in HD on FOX, but the picture quality on the DVD set is nearly perfect, and the soundtrack successfully captures every joke and sound effect as well as every note of the musical numbers and orchestral score. This DVD collection is also packed with bonus features, including over 21 minutes of hilarious deleted scenes, 7 audio commentaries, a table read, animatics, a retrospecive featurette and the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con panel.

I could re-watch these episodes over and over and still find something new to laugh at every time. And seeing them for the first time in their uncensored form adds a whole new experience. The series is better than ever—this set comes highly recommended for both casual and die-hard fans of the series.

What’s Included on the Blu-ray:

Episodes: (486 min)

• All 22 Uncensored Episodes of Season 11 (2012-13):
  Disc 1: “Into Fat Air”, “Ratings Guy”, “The Old Man & the Big ‘C'”, “Yug Ylimaf”, “Joe’s Revenge”, “Lois Comes Out of Her Shell”, “Friends Without Benefits”
  Disc 2: “Jesus, Mary & Joseph”, “Space Cadet”, “Brian’s Play”, “The Giggity Wife”, “Valentine’s Day in Quahog”, “Chris Cross”, “Call Girl”, “Turban Cowboy”
  Disc 3: “12 and a Half Angry Men”, “Bigfat”, “Total Recall”, “Save the Clam”, “Farmer Guy”, “Roads to Vegas”, “No Country Club For Old Men”

• Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1, Spanish Surround DD 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Portuguese

Extras:

• Commentary On Select Episodes
  The creators, writers, directors and animators provide interesting and entertaining commentaries on seven of the season’s episodes. While it would have been nice to also hear from the main cast, the inclusion of the animators provides an nice additional viewpoint we don’t usually get in the commentaries.
  • “Yug Ylimaf” (21:39)
    Commentary by executive producer/writer Mark Hentemann, editor Mike Elias, director John Holmquist, assistant director Rick Del Carmen, and production mixer Patrick Clark.
  • “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” (22:19)
    Commentary by Patrick Warburton, executive producer Steve Callaghan, co-executive producer/writer Tom Devanney, director Julius Wu, character designer Mick Cassidy, and production coordinator Nicholas Cofancesco.
  • “Brian’s Play” (21:54)
    Commentary by executive producer/writer Mark Hentemann, co-executive producer/writer Gary Janetti, co-executive producer Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, director Joseph Lee and animation associate producer Brent Crowe.
  • “Valentine’s Day in Quahog” (22:42)
    Commentary by executive producer Mark Hentemann, writer Daniel Palladino, director Bob Bowen and assistant director Jacob Hair.
  • “Chris Cross” (22:42)
    Commentary by executive producer Steve Callaghan, writers Anthony Blasucci & Mike Desilets, director Jerry Langford and assistant director Michael Rundle.
  • “Farmer Guy” (21:58)
    Commentary by executive producer Steve Callaghan, co-executive producer/writer Patrick Meighan, director Mike Kim and assistant director Tim Parsons.
  • “Roads to Vegas” (23:27)
    Commentary by executive producer/writer Steve Callaghan, director Greg Colton, producer Shannon Smith, background designer David Beall and color designer Yelena Tokman.
• Deleted Scenes (21:16)
  An excellent collection of 66 fully-completed and uncensored deleted scenes—there is a lot of really fun material included here! Each disc contains the scenes related to the episodes on that disc.
• 200 Episodes Later (21:28)
  A fun retrospective with the cast and creators of the series. Clips are intermixed with interviews with stars Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, and Seth Green, and executive producers/writers Mark Hentemann, Danny Smith, Steve Callaghan, and Rich Appel, and executive producer Alec Sulkin. They reminisce about the series first 200 episodes, including the more controversial/banned, Star Wars and “Road To…” episodes, as well as the move to widescreen, and some of the series’ big musical numbers.
• 200th Episode Table Read (37:00)
  The full-length table read with the cast for Family Guy‘s 200th episode, “Yug Ylimaf”. This is followed by a toast by 20th Century Fox Television Chairman Gary Newman.
• Select Scene Animatics
  • Scene Animatic from “Into Fat Air” with Side-by-Side Commentary (3:59)
    Director Joseph Lee and colorist Bike Kinzle provide commentary on this side-by-side comparison between the original drawings and completed scene of the Griffin family stuck on Mount Everest.
  • Full Episode Animatic from “Space Cadet” (21:33)
    Watch the entire episode in its original animatic form with audio.
  • Scene Animatic from “Total Recall” with Side-by-Side Commentary (3:40)
    Director Joseph Lee and assistant director Wincat Alcala provide commentary on this side-by-side comparison between the original drawings and completed scene of Stewie and Brian trying to rescue Rupert.
• Family Guy at Comic-Con (29:29)
  The entire 2012 Family Guy Panel from the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con as well as some pre-panel interviews. The panelists includes showrunners/executive producers Steve Callaghan & Mark Hentemann, actors Mike Henry, Alex Borstein, Seth Green and Mila Kunis, and series creator Seth MacFarlane.

Final Thoughts:

This collection of 22 uncensored episodes is hilarious. Despite being a standard-definition release, the picture and sound quality is on par with the show’s original HD airing. The DVD set contains some really great bonus material including audio commentaries, deleted scenes, a retrospective featurette, a table read, the Comic-Con panel, animatics and more. Re-watching the episodes on this DVD set, I found myself laughing all over again—this show has great replay value! While this a an easy recommendation, I offer a warning to parents that this series contains some adult subject matter, and the DVD set only contains the uncensored audio.