Death Has A Shadow - Reception

Reception

"Another surreal and imaginative running gag involves Peter’s attack of conscience. The devil on his shoulder instructs him to keep lying but when he turns to hear the angel’s perspective no one appears. We cut to the small angel stuck in traffic on the conscience’s highway. Later in the show the conscience arrives and Peter seeks his advice. So the small angel gets advice from the small devil on his shoulder and then turns to his other shoulder and again no angel appears. Cut to an even smaller angel stuck in traffic. Pretty memorable".

Robin Pierson, TV Critic describing his favorite joke of the episode

The episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. Ahsan Haque of IGN in a 2008 review rated the episode an 8.9/10, praising the integration of humor into the episode's storyline. Haque noted that the episode was "a very strong start to this long running classic series, and revisiting it serves as a reminder that unlike many other television shows, there are very few awkward moments, and much of the show's brilliance is immediately apparent." In 2009, the site singled out "Death Has a Shadow" as a "strong start ".

Robin Pierson of The TV Critic gave the episode a mixed review, rating the episode a 67/100, stating that it is one of the most densely packed pilots on television, he mentioned that it is entertaining but he said that there are many jokes that follow the quality does not win out over quantity saying. He compared Peter to Homer Simpson and he compared the show to The Simpsons and King of the Hill. He criticized the amount of unfunny jokes while he praised the surreal moments. At the end of his review he stated that Family Guy is a different kind of animated comedy which sets out to do jokes that other cartoons can’t do, also mentioning that the show had promise to become really funny.

A more negative review came from EW.com's Ken Tucker, who called the animation clunky, which he said made Hanna-Barbera's animation look like state-of-the-art. Tucker also said in his review that he hoped that smart people would use the Family Guy half hour to turn off the television set and start a debate over the air strikes in Kosovo Combine and he also called the show "The Simpsons as conceived by a singularly sophomoric mind that lacks any reference point beyond other TV shows". Even before it aired the pilot received some criticism from the Parents Television Council, a watchdog; the creator of this website L. Brent Bozell III wrote that he initially speculated that Family Guy would be "pushing the envelope".