Maybe it's best to think of Seth MacFarlane as the guy in class who copies your homework. He's shrewd enough to find a way to pass the class, but he hasn't done any original work all semester. Let's look at MacFarlane's career: His weirdly ripe singing voice is cribbed from Sinatra. His interminably enduring Family Guy is ripped off wholesale from The Simpsons, with a bit of All in the Family sprinkled in. And here's A Million Ways to Die in the West, ostensibly MacFarlane's version of Blazing Saddles, a comedy that injects the familiar western genre with bawdy toilet humor—and yes, there are poop jokes that make Blazing Saddles' farting campfire scene look like Oscar Wilde. by Ned Lannamann