Reception
"420" was viewed by 7.40 million viewers on its original airdate, receiving a rating of 4.3/6 in Nielsen ratings. The character Brian was awarded the 2009 Stoner of the Year award by the magazine High Times due to this episode, marking the first time an animated character received the honor.
The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Ahsan Haque of IGN rated the episode an 8.5/10, commenting that it "worked out quite well mainly due to the superb musical number". He called the storyline "pretty cohesive" with a "very few truly random jokes thrown in here", though he did criticize the killing of the cat as "over-the-top" and the large amount of blood which he called "disturbing". Genevieve Koski of The A.V. Club stated that the episode "showed admirable restraint with its pot-centric plot", and called the musical number "truly spectacular". She graded the episode B, behind the Simpsons episode “The Good, the Sad, and the Drugly” which received a rating of B+; and the American Dad! episode “Delorean Story-an” which received a rating of A. The TV Critic's Robin Pierson gave the episode a 54/100; in his review, he appreciated the plot structure, especially the randomness of Peter's list of hated cultural icons. He did, however, criticize the featured musical number; he referred to it as a "waste of time" and claimed that "jokes about Texans, Michael Jackson, and Helen Keller are so obvious."
The Parents Television Council, a frequent critic of Family Guy and series creator Seth MacFarlane, branded a June 6, 2009 re-airing their "Worst TV Show of the Week", due to its emphasis on the legality of cannabis.
Read more about this topic: 420 (Family Guy)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)