'Family Guy' Satirizes Post Political Cartooning -- But Toles Truly Makes Us Laff

Because we here at Comic Riffs are absolute Pavlovian suckers for anything in pop culture that combines the words "Washington Post" and "cartoon," we laughed at this "Family Guy" aside over the weekend -- even if it bears no relevance to current reality.

In this cutaway riff, the "Family Guy" pooch Brian (speaking of Pavlovian) wears a "liberal" label as he yammers with baby Stewie hoisting a "McCain Feingold" platter. The satire references "a universe where everything is depicted as a Washington Post political cartoon."

Humorously enough, too, this clip has been posted on YouTube as a "Tom Toles Cartoon Satire" -- even though most days, the Pulitzer-winning Toles is the furthest thing from those chronic cartoon "labelers" of yore. (Who knows -- perhaps it's all just an extreme meta-tribute by "Family Guy" creator Seth McFarlane to Post legend "Herblock," who would have turned 100 on Oct. 13.)

The funniest thing we've heard related to this clip, in fact, comes from Toles himself, who deadpanned to Comic Riffs about the satire: "I couldn't understand it because the characters weren't labeled [by name]." (Separately, Toles also commented on PostPartisan.)