Family Guy v. Simpsons

My Fred Flinstone is better than your Fred Flinstone!

(Sorry, I just wanted to say that.)

-- jones

OTM. People I have a lot in common with, taste-wise, often find Family Guy funny, and I find it utterly unwatchable.

x-post

Example of "Family Guy" not working? Peter stripping him and his friend naked before the "Bachelor" auditions. "Shocking" just to be shocking ain't funny. If Kyle had unpantsed Cartman, you can be damn sure that there would've been a very funny point to it all.

But I love that "Lois, you dirty girl...you filthy stinky prostitute" exchange.

So so true.

By themselves, they aren't. However, "Family Guy" and FOX think so, or they wouldn't run that disclaimer at the beginning of the program that makes one think that they're about to see Heavy Metal or something.

PAHAHAHAHA

switch around the critic and family guy and i'm with you. all of them make me laugh, some more than the rest.

Meg: Excuse me, Mayor West?
Adam West: How do you know my language?

That was funny!

Ummm that's kind of a tenuous claim to the idea that the creators of the Family Guy are trying to shock you with cartoon nudity, actually, I mean in the day and age of 20 trillion complaints to the FCC over .08 seconds of nipple...I think even Iron Chef is carrying "MIGHT OFFEND SOME VIEWERS" warnings these days.

-- Jesus (sonofgo...), July 12th, 2005.

I know four guys who said it for you.

CHOCOTEATS!!!

(cue stunning music)

The thing about those two is that they're the best characters, but they totally need each other as a foil.

Also, the shows is a winner for me just in terms of some of the most absurdist stuff it pulls off: the joke about the cow-kites, or the fire truck hunting elks in the African Savannah. "The ambulances will have to wait their turn."

There is no other point to Peter and CLeveland getting naked with each other than "OMG THEY'RE NAKED AND THEY'RE MEN AND FART IF YOU LUVVVV COOKIES!"

the joke was Peter gave Cleveland cornrows. "Aw, thank you, peter. yeah, these are lookin' nice."

One of the things I like best about it is how obsessed Macfarlane seems with some of the ridiculous ways people actually talk, especially when they're feeling awkward or trying to be sensitive or patronizing each other; the funniest parts of the show always seem to come when all the antic stuff breaks and there's a long stammering silence in which someone tries very hard to accomplish something verbally. There are Peter's weird sudden apologies (e.g. knocking Brian unconscious and doing his whole "oh my god I am so sorry ... wake up, sleepyhead"), there's Stewie's being-sensitive voice, though they seem to be overdoing that lately (e.g. "how you feeling, champ? you want a sooooda?"), there's Brian's bullshit-polite voice (e.g. congratulating his friend on the one-man show -- "thank you, what a journey") ... and still one of the funniest-ever first-watch things on the show is like three minutes of Stewie ridiculing a girl's "you are the weakest link" joke, halting and hmming and coming up with more approaches the whole time. They're just damned good with the ways people talk to try and fill in awkward moments.

Then again I am apparently like twelve years old, cause my favorite joke in the whole series is Stewie making his horrible French horn sound and backing out of the room saying "That was 'Me Farting' ... by Chopin."

however, NOTHING beats the simpsons in its prime.

Hello, you.

The thing that's hilarious in retrospect is that the script that they were tearing to little bits was actually funny but it was written in the Family Guy absurd-aside style, ergo it had to be stomped like a cockroach. (This was before the premiere of Family Guy.) There was all of this handwringing going on about how Homer didn't do anything to show he loved his family in the first scene and how it didn't make sense that there would be all of these jumpcuts to sight gags and why did you write something that would make the Baby Jesus cry, etc etc etc.

Oh, no, no, no. "Highway to Heaven" was a funnier show than "KOTH" is at the moment.

this doesn't sound funny at all. the lead up does though. the pay off sounds obvious and dumb.

I hate this show, it's not funny. Neither is the Simpsons anymore. South Park hasn't been funny since the movie. Maybe I'm really too old for cartoons???

also it is the only network cartoon to ever regularly feature a WS Burroughs analogue.

they did this again on sunday, with stewie just laying into his babysitter's boyfriend

also, someone noted that the simpsons writers don't really do the wacky asides anymore, as they ceded that territory to Family Guy years ago.

Except that the Simpsons never did it as cut-aways, but only in the characters imaginations:

e.g. "I am evil ho-MER! I am evil HO-mer" or

or

"Bart, are you thinking what i'm thinking?"

"Probably not."

[Bart imagines himself sticking up Santa Claus, then riding away on the sled]

"Haw haw haw."

Which is something I really miss.

"Hmmmm. 'Hostage Negotiator....?'"

Family Guy has sucked since episode 1.

I kinda got off on Stewie's boyfriend-taunting, yeah, cause the taunt was surely pretty close to home for the show's whole audience: Strokes-liking college boys file-sharing Simpsons episodes and smoking weed out of soda cans?

Because it's funny.

Unfunny above in photo.

Being God isn't all it's cracked up to be. Being everywhere, I have to watch Family Shit. Yeah, I use curse words. I never said you couldn't. Those are your rules.

And E, the one with the Weakest Link thing is one of my favorites -- now that I think about it, two of the other jokes I reference up there are in that episode. It's the one where Stewie winds up in theater school.

Also I saw the shirt y'all got for Phil and it was all sweet and shit.

Sub Custos at best.

Here's something I can't wrap my head around: some of Family Guy's laziest time-filler loops still strike me as hilarious, even when I know what they're doing. I think the original was when Peter banged his knee and then rolled around on the ground for like a minute and a half groaning -- and for some reason I still laugh at it. It's certainly funnier than all their random back-references this season (evil monkey, deaf guy covered in honey, etc).

subject of the Family Guy DVD that hits in like 2 months.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385690/

xpost:

also, conan o'brien employs it a bit.

the Simpsons did (and still do) this all the time.

Wally: Hey Dilbert, what do you call it when someone from middle management goes all the way to upper management?

Dilbert: I don't know, what do you call it?

Wally: A promotion.

(pause)

Dilbert: Here's a memo.

I'm sure others have noticed how on Family Guy they purposefully test the viewers' patience with long, deliberately over-long scenes. This probably turns off a lot of people, but halfway through such scenes I realise, "Oh wait, Macfarlane's pulling a Michaelangelo Antonioni again!" and that makes me appreciate the show more.

Sort of... there was an episode last season, I think, where Homer bought a defibrillator and made a crack that I can't remember exactly now. I think it was something about being able to hold something (fatty food? drugs?) in one hand that would threaten to bring his life ever closer to its end and another thing (defib) in the other that could extend it. Not a great joke, but something that if left as a throwaway might've been amusing in a "first eight/nine seasons" type way.

But they didn't leave it there. No, they had to have him demonstrate the joke by alternating between the two items. I turned to whoever I was watching the episode with and said "this is the very essence of what Family Guy, et al, have done to The Simpsons!"

Or the problem could just be they don't have anything left. Yeah, that's obviously it.

might as well link this here for bored lollers.

Peter: Make like Siamese twins and split... and then one of you die.

Along with the black/asian thing, there's a tendency of them to make jokes based on violence to women: The Honeymooners gag, stuffing dead John Cusack into a mail box, the blind deaf dumb quadriplegic Meg, and that random "What do you say to a drink after work?" "I say Beth's going to have another black eye to explain tomorrow!" exchange. They get away with it because it's funny.

i think that's part of the joke; making cracks in an almost deadpan way about really horrifying things.

Already been done on The Simpsons.

Or mac vs pc, ie vs netscape.

Sadly there never was much of a OS2 Win95 fite was there.

Dan totally OTM. Actually the long drawn out gags are what I dont like about FG, but I find a lot to laugh at - I love absurdities and surreal moments, and people going SPLAT on their face for no reason. It helps I'm australian and dont have to find popculture gags over-tired Hell we dont even GET some of them. I had to explain the Margot Kidder one to Nick.

Futurama kicks both these shows arses anyway for one reason - its actually very very clever.

Also, I've said this before but I really think that Nitsuh should run for some kind of office one day.

the drawn-out gag thing can also get rilly boring and irritating if overused, or if it's just an excuse to do something stupid. like i found the whole chicken-chase-montage just truly boring and dumb, as well as the north by northwest rip and etc. which i guess is more that the "truly extended cut-away" for its own sake is generally a bad idea b/c after a certain amount of extension there needs to be some justification WITHIN the cutaway, and not just in the "ooh look this is a long weird cutaway" factor.

Family Guy, though, man...why does anyone like it? At all? And yet, everyone seems to love it, even though all it is is a barely competent rip off of the Simpsons after the Simpsons started to suck.

any given four second Norm MacDonald is about 7000000 times funnier than any Family Guy episode

ihttp://img335.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cherotottearani9ov.gif

For some reason, this does not mitigate my wrath. Although I don't guess it was supposed to.

I also watched Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Please, join me in celebration.

Who's Rob?

i can see what people are saying about the drawn-out gags in family guy being good, but i feel like they really overdo them; is it possible to watch something like that "ow! hissssssssss! ow! hissssssss! ow! hisssssssss!" thing more than once without wanting to stab yourself? i guess i prefer character-based humor to the free-for-all atmosphere of FG: some of the jokes are good but they never add up to anything much, and the animation is so ugly, plain and slick-looking that it's hard to watch for too long (this is also a problem i have with nu-simpsons: there's just something almost subliminally WRONG-looking about it).

wasn't there a whole episode of south park devoted to the whole "THE SIMPSONS ALREADY DID IT!" mentality?

anyway, the family guy is funny.
the family guy is not a simpsons ripoff.
the family guy is nowhere near as funny as prime simpsons.

unfortunately the simpsons has been total and complete garbage for more than 5 years now. the son of frank grimes tries to kill homer? sideshow bob is evil again? celebrity cameos? "the simpsons are going to africa"? family guy is easily funnier than that crap.

Screw you Kyle, I'm a going haaaam.

Anyway, Todd McFarlane is

1 Seth's Brother

2 the numbnuts who invented Spawn, etc.

3 one of the principally responsible parties for the Physics? Anatomy, Perspective? Readability? DENIED! Style of comic book art.

2 the numbnuts who invented Spawn, etc.

!!!!

I did not know that.

according to IMDB:

Todd McFarlane was born in 1961 in Calgary.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0568825/

Seth MacFarlane was born in 1973 in Kent, Connecticut.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0532235/

from the specific humor of the show, there is no way that the guy creating it could not be from New England or grow up watching too much TV in the late '70s/'80s: the Incredible Hulk tv show, Electric Company, Snorks, the dancin' cheese guy with a cowboy hat from ABC saturday morning cartoons, Kool Aid Man, etc.

also, i never knew this: Todd got sued by Neil Gaiman 3 years ago.

is it possible to watch something like that "ow! hissssssssss! ow! hissssssss! ow! hisssssssss!" thing more than once without wanting to stab yourself?

YES

awesome!

Snoop Dogg as a white pimp
Tom Petty as Luann's boyfriend Lucky ("Sometimes people can be cruel to shiny things...")
Chuck Mangione

there aren't too many "cameos" on that show, but when they're used, they're used well.

Still, that's not going to stop me from recommending a bloodbath, cause that's just the kind of guy who fantasizes about totally unjustified genocide that I am.

Anyway, yeah KotH does great guest voice. Those are some of the best, but I also recomend Gov. Ann Richards as herself, the Dixie Chicks as Bill's sexy cousins, Bob Goldthwaite as Jimmy Whichard, Billy Bob Thornton, James Carville, Uta Hagen, Tammy Wynette, oh, so many more. Gnereally better playing roles than themselves.

I wouldn't necessarily say "dirtier".

Also: "I DON'T KNOW YOU! THAT'S MY PURSE!"

KotH has been better than "The Simpsons" and any other animated show since its second season, probably!

"Both of them!"

"Aladdin.... Elmo....Jenny McCarthy?"

http://www.geocities.com/arlen_texas/kothquotes.htm

This is a rather better source.

crosspost!

HANK: You're going to have to marry Luanne.
BOBBY: But I'm only twelve years old!
HANK: Well, just think, you can be married for eighty years.
BOBBY: Dad, you can't make me marry Luanne!
HANK: Yes I can, Bobby -- you're only twelve years old.

Kahn has all the best lines. I'm still trying to find the early season ep where Kahn is trapped with Hank. "Hank Hill, your whole family like Tennessee Williams play."

KAHN: You know what's funny? This time I on Texas soil first. I smuggle him in.
HANK: Very funny, Kahn.
KAHN: Hey, I live next door to alien now. My property worth nothing.
HANK: Ha ha.
KAHN: Ah, you got in the baby way. I had to memorize all the presidents. You couldn't do it. That stretch between Polk and Buchanan wipe you out. You ever heard of Garfield? He more than a cartoon cat, you know. He part of history of my country.

they also all happen to focus on the daily lives of an average-sized middle-class american white(or yellow) family.

http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/News/9908/06/showbuzz/pjs.jpg

Here, here. WOrd up to Sally Field and Mary Tyler Moore especially.

I was about to come on here and pull KotH down by saying that they have a really bad tendency to get all maudlin and poignant in every episode. Let me guess, Bobby develops a new habit that Hank doesn't think is "man" enough. Peggy mangles Spanish, Bill acts pathetic, and by the end of the episode, Hank realizes that Bobby's okay after all.

They still kinda do that a lot, but reading these quotes, quotes I've had quoted to me 100 times now, all of a sudden I get it a little better.

I also just realized that Kahn is an angaram of Hank. Har har har.

xxpost

More recent Simpsons episodes have jettisoned this need in an attempt to stay fresh, meaning a lot of the time there's no 'happy ending' or redemption for Homer/Bart/whoever (because that would be cliched), 'heart' or indeed 'humanity' effectively replaced by increased metatastic self-indlugence in order to deliver 22 minutes of entertainment.

Still works for a lot of people, but not me (with other shows maybe).

"Don't you see? You're not making rock and roll better, you're making Christianity worse!"

ATHF and Sealab are extremely funny maybe a quarter of the time.

I never watch King of the Hill.

(Who cares about "heart" in shows like these?)

The irony of sorts was that in it's golden era The Simpsons did seem to care a lot, but regularly commenting on how the pure, absurd horror of Itchy & Skratchy was a genuinely great thing (which it clearly was).

well, yeah, but when has actual reality had anything whatsoever to do with the what the rightwing critics accused the show of doing?

Even a book or three has come out about how the show is one of the most religious television programs out there.

meanwhile, in the 'strangely overlooked' file
HAHAHAHAHAHA! OTM.

I hadn't seen an episode of King of the Hill in years up until three weeks ago. I was surprised it was still on but I was even more surprised that it was still enjoyable.

Wow, has a show ever had a more obnoxious stable of famous fans?

http://www.100xr.com/100_XR/Artists/H/Heart/Heart.jpg

http://www.omguide.com/images/R_Marx_Color.jpg

Does Howard Stern's E show count?

Also, where john mayer lay on the line between heart & sentimentality?

This still cracks me the fuck up.

And gene simmons being on there is no surprise, since Kiss has been on the show a few times. The best part of their appearance was Ace Frehley was just as whacked-out on the cartoon as he is reportedly in real life. He even yells random stupid things at the wrong time, which the other members of the band react to with slight dread.

-- Huk-L (handsomishbo...), July 13th, 2005 3:44 PM. (Huk-L)

hahaha

you probably don't care, but there is a great scene in a family guy episode featuring randy newman

I love Futurama. Really love it. On the right day, wd prob'ly argue that it's more perfectly formed than The Simpsons. But don't you ever feel that those episodes are trying too hard to be "wow that was so emotional!"? And that kind of tarnishes my zinc-y cynical pump-valve.

Futurama might be my favorite show ever if I'm being honest with myself. Well actually if I'm being honest with myself my favorite show is probably something frightening like Manimal but Futurama is up there.

Agreed. At least the one about Fry's dog was very funny before it tried to break my heart. The one about Leela's coma just outright sucked.

The Family Guy is exactly what the Simpsons has become, aimless yet also strangely strident. You can feel each scene straining to impress, like Judy Garland.

They're watching it at work again.

"SNOO SNOO!"

xpost: kingfish, when I say jokes I mean setup-punchline standup comedy style jokes. Which I love. But my memory of Futurama is that it doesn't have many of these. Hmm.

"Awwww, I made myself sad."

You reckon? Theres tons and tons of absurd one liners in this show! Many are very nerdy I'll admit. Maybe some people miss those? I dunno. I laugh at every second line :/

"Also Zoidberg!"

"Since when are you performing at children's parties?"

"Performing? What? Please, if someone could spare me money to buy shoes..."

You're right of course. But if I'm honest, I dont much like set-up style punchline jokes anyway. I like rolling absurdity and surrealism and immature silliness and such.

???

Tell it to Jackie Mason.

Er, I mean, Zoidberg.

Peter: Who do you think I am, Benjamin Disraeli?

Disraeli: You don't even know who I am.

Get real. Simpsons sucks balls when they start putting in a plotline.

"Optimus Prime is Jewish? Who'd've known?!"

"You Brits can't turn our bar into an English pub! We kicked your asses in world war two and we can do it again!"

I don't think they relied on him especially. Of course it was a gimmick, as was Brian, but that's the nature of the show (ultra-gimmicky) so no big deal.

part of it may have been my Simpsons disappointment (eventually turning to downright hatred/can't-be-in-the-room-if-someone-else-is-watching-a-new-episode) kicking in when Family Guy first appeared so I lapped it up as it seemed fresher and funnier straight away.

People have yet to explain to me the reason behind all this vitriol against new Simpsons. Is it not funny any more? Or is there more to it than that?

Stewie to me is a very one-dimensional joke that I didn't find so funny in the first place. I do like the use of flashbacks to alternative universes that they use in Family Guy (eg the scenario where Peter is in Tron, or fighting a chicken).

Although I did have to switch off a fairly recent one where they started singing patriotic songs to show they didn't hate america.

People have yet to explain to me the reason behind all this vitriol against new Simpsons. Is it not funny any more? Or is there more to it than that?

Urgh, I probably tried to explain it on another Simpsons thread, as have others.

Basically when The Simpsons stopped doing 'happy endings' every time I started to not enjoy it half as much. I think this really began with the Frank Grimes episode - my reaction to that was comparable to the way Abe Simpson reacted when he finally saw Itchy & Skratchy for the first time at the awards show - which I suppose may make me a cantankerous old geezer, or indeed exactly like Frank Grimes! But I've never really liked the kind of comedy that fails to reward the victim in any capacity AT ALL, and I would argue that there's nothing wrong with that - granted the Grimes episode did have funny moments, and still presented a moral, but this time it wasn't 'funny because it was true', it was horrible because it was true.

Unlike pretty much every preceding episode there was no circular aspect to the story for any of the Simpson family (other than Bart going from not having a factory, to having a factory, and then back not having a factory - and Grimes going from being out of Homer's life, to being in it, to being out of it again, but with nothing gained), and no resolution or lesson learned. Since then many episode stories have been a straight line, which in itself is fine. Indeed the circular aspect was becoming a strain as it was frustrating to see the story twist and turn before everything ended up back how it was with nothing really changing. This is a big issue with the show, what with characters unable to age properly (the kids in particular are unable to really develop as a result of this, though other characters such as Lenny and Marge have changed over time).

That episode also saw Homer reduced to new lows of insensitivity and idiocy, again without redemption - there might be examples of this happening before but I can't think of any. Every time I see a recent episode now there is some scene like this happening (oh Millhouse gets bullied again, or Skinner is undermined and humiliated again, with no karmic payback) and I just don't find it funny personally, it's just inane, senseless, boring slapstick. If you enjoy that fine but I don't.

Anyway, with that resolutionary aspect receding from the stories the show seemed to become a bit darker (e.g. the episode where Bart tries to save the bird eggs but it turns out they're lizards, causing a lizard epidemic in Springfield, but ending with some lizards tearing into a pidgeon presented as funny, wtf?). This was probably seen as a logical progression in an unprecedented situation. The show had to keep going even though Groening himself has been quoted as feeling it shouldn't. As a way of trying to keep it fresh they started developing the minor characters more e.g. Apu getting married (actually a really funny episode with a satisfying outcome, as the situation had changed for at least one character) but then having an affair (the moral apparently being 'women will just have to accept this shit now and then and deal with it', i can't remember why Manjula stuck by him - probably just to empthasize further the profound and equally absurd way in which Marge remained devoted to Homer despite his behaviour over the years, perhaps out of fear or out of religious conditioning - oh wait, it's 'love' isn't it) having octuplets (which I thought was pointless and extremely dubious re racial stereotyping and any jokes to be made therein, see also Cleetus and his 15 or however many kids).

Unfortunately I don't think the minor character devlopment benefitted the audience any more than the writers. Character development being reasonable and good, but the way they did it just seemed so cynical and desperate all too often. Characters continued to do things you never expected or wanted them to do (Mr Burns falling in love with a much, much younger woman and even getting in her pants? No thanks) and even defying physics (I've mentioned before Homer's dancing with Marge in one episode and his skateboard fight with Tony Hawk in another - might be funny but betrays something else about the show as it was at the same time), just for a few cheap laughs and a half-arsed attempt at making a story out of it with no useful moral or resolution as before.

Sometimes it still worked (Homer, Barney and Mo joining the Navy, much like Deep Space Homer, capitalised on the absurdity of the story by just packing in loads of neat gags too funny to spoil it). Other great jokes from past episodes were rehashed and run into the ground (the schticks of Comic Book Guy and Frink, for example), diluting their power, pushing the Do You See thrill of the show to the extent that it was no longer LOL funny, just oh-so-very-clever-well-done...the celebrity cameos were still mostly amusing but increasingly more contrived and pointless (Britney? Tony Blair? R.E.M.? The Who? Who gives a shit?)

I'm not sure what to say about killing off Maude Flanders. I suppose it was good for doing the whole 'test of faith' thing re Ned - but not much humour there though really is there? Most of the characters seemed to become either grossly misfortunate (and exploited mercilessly as a result e.g. Gill - funny the first couple of times but that's it), downright unpleasant and uncaring or both, and in Homer's case just plain retarded. Marge lost her divinity and charm as the voice of order and reason amidst the chaos, becoming just as flawed as everyone else. Lisa became far too annoying and again failed to gain in some other way whenever constantly let down by Homer and Bart. There are other examples out there of how the show changed. For me the changes were not good. Go back to 'Homie The Clown' or 'Last Exit To Springfield' or probably my absolute favourite episode 'Rosebud' and the differences are strikingly obvious to me - innocence well and truly lost. Clearly thousands of people disagree with me though. And don't say it's daft to analyse it or care this much, we're talking about the greatest TV show of all time, so it deserves all the analysis and criticism it's going to get (but that South Park episode probably alluded to all of this anyway).

Anyway look, The PJs really wasn't actually that bad.

(answer: nowhere)

Bill Clinton fucks pigs! Pwnd

hahaha, i liked this.

Stressed Eric was terrible/comedically lacking partly for the Grimes aspect of the main character, except there was not even one funny line in the whole thing, it was just a series of unfortunate events.

Well yes I wished they had done a movie in '99 or 2000 and then quit, but as I've abandoned it now I don't really care what they do and in fact if they start doing really off the wall stuff that might be interesting.

One thing The Simpsons practically invented which Family Guy owes so much to is the 'X refers to something they once did, or an imagined situation and then we see that played out in their head or elsewhere'. Family Guy uses this device on average around every 10 seconds, usually to great effect but it can get a bit tiresome when done so often.

Also the effect is used differently in the two shows: It's absolutely central to Family Guys, because it's basically a series of 10/100-second sketches.

Is this like, for instance Men Behaving Badly where as soon as they started putting in an on-going plotline it really started reaching?

I mean, really I watch Simpsons for the gags, not for the moral at the end of the story (they used to do this is He-Man, didn't they?), or the way the characters act. It's a cartoon so therefore the characters should be able to do pretty much anything the writers want, and if that means fighting with Tony Hawk or whatever then that's cool. That's why Simpsons is an animation and not a sitcom.

The darker episodes to me, were to me, at first quite shocking that they'd put something like these on a family show, but really I admired them for taking the risk of killing off Maude and showing how people deal with that.

And I know you didn't ask for this but your qualms about plot - I mean, it's only until you explained it that I guess I only just about understand what you mean, but it's such a subtlety (for me) that I can't see it affecting my enjoyment of the show, because after all I watch it for the gags.

I guess you're right that some jokes do get rehashed, catchphrases over done and certain schticks tired, but this show's been going a very very long time and all in all there is usually an abundance of jokes in there.

Which series was the episode that starts off at the fair? That was one of the funniest opening bits ever. Wondering if this is counted as a later episode. The Max Power one is great too. And the tomacco one.

My husband taped every episode of the pjs and is waiting for it to come out on dvd! I've never seen it.

Circular episodes = nothing changes. Like I Love Lucy compared to Cheers/Friends/Roseanne. What actually started progress as a feature of sitcoms? I'm thinking Happy Days.

You can't compare animated TV shows to comic strips really I don't think. I wonder if I would enjoy the Simpsons comics though...

I was complaining about the way they'd resorted to minor character development and the way it was done most of the time, not saying it couldn't be done better.

It's a cartoon so therefore the characters should be able to do pretty much anything the writers want, and if that means fighting with Tony Hawk or whatever then that's cool.

It's just an example of how the rules adhered to in the show for years had since changed. They would of course always exaggerate the effects of violence on characters (Homer falling down the ravine twice and surviving, for example) or do silly things to make an amusing point/reference (Homer transforming into both Popeye and J Edgar Hoover in Deep Space Homer) but it seemed different then, it's harder to explain why granted.

In 'Rosebud' where Mr Burns and Smithers are actually taking part in a sitcom having taken over all TV channels in order to pressure Homer into giving back Bobo (with Burns' panting suggesting he ran from studio to studio to do so) - "Watch out Smithers! Bwahahaha! I love this show!"

Has any episode in the last five years done anything as ingenius and hilarious as this? I sez nup.

That was the chili festival. This was the one at an actual fair and Homer and Bart become carnies.

You were friends with babies?

What about the brother that went missing and was never spoken of again, though? Perhaps it was Cheers?

except that i must say this ep has one of the funniest gags in the later year: Homer shoots up with Burns' fox juice, cut to a deranged Homer running up the stairs & carrying marge, cut to a shot of them afterwards. Marge wonders "oh wait, do you think the kids heard?" cut to horrified looks on Bart & Lisa, and then to an awed Ned.

"Woooow."

xpost

The Rosebud episode was the one with Burns' teddy bear, Bobo. 'Twas the Simpsons' Citizen Kane ep, even getting some of the same exact shots.

Err...? There's a stereotype that Indian families have lots of children?

xpost

I vaguely remember the Bobo episode - can't remember that much of it. HAven't seen all of Citizen Kane either though.

You're thinking of "Dream On", I think. However, the flashbacks weren't about the character himself, just what was supposedly going through his head at the time.

That show was even less funny than "Family Guy", although it did show tits a lot.

sorry, but this is a red herring accusation - the show explains the octopluts via Manjula (and Apu - yes, that's the joke) taking fertility pills.

starring brian benben.

and tittays.

xpost

As much as I've enjoyed Simpsons episodes featuring Apu, the character has always bothered me in a way nothing on Family Guy ever has (or anything else on The Simpons for that matter. There's a semi-smug paternal treatment of the character (by the writers) which has always put me off.

Also, Harry Shearer's show on NPR is unlistenable and one of the worst things ever.

re: Family Guy. I think that sums it up for me. It seems like the kind of show Adam Carolla and Bill Maher would find absolutely hysterical.

It's so so incredibly joyless.

(x-post)

xposts

(Randy Newman) "Fat man with his kids and dog
Drove in through the morning fog
Hey there Rover, come on over..."

(Lois) [spoken] "Well, it's nice to have music while we eat."

(Randy) "Red headed lady, reaching for an apple
Gonna take a bite, nope, nope,
She gonna breathe on it first, wipe it on her blouse.
She takes a bite, chews it once, twice, three times, four times, Stops!
Saliva workin', takes a hard long look at Randy ...five times
Fat old husband walking over"

(Lois) [spoken] "Let's get the hell out of here."

(Randy) "They're walking down the road
Left foot, right foot
Left foot, right foot
Left.."

Goddamit, I've had just about enough of you!

Steve, thanks for your long post because in every Simpsons thread I've been baffled at your dislike of where it's ended up, and now I see where you're coming from, even if I cant agree. I simply don't demand from that show, or any comedy animation, the things you seem to. I just enjoy them all on a visual absurdist level first of all, and if I can I'll then delve into the layers of jokes like I do on Futurama. Tho the crack upthread abt "high school maths" irritated me - dude god, not everyone is a maths nerd but its still nice to know they even got away with such gags without being cancelled... oh, wait.

Tha's ignant.

http://webpages.charter.net/kennethburns/Club%205%20-%20Madison,%20Wisconsin_files/shirleyq.gif

SIMPSONS POOBAH GROENING COMPARES FAMILY GUY TO HITLER.

if I find out that someone likes family guy, I often but not always think, like someone said, upthread, "that is strange because most of the other stuff you like isn't complete rubbish"

also, fuck you

-- Marco Salvetti - FAMILY GUY DVD MOVIE LEAKED ON THE INTERNET (salvetti12...), July 24th, 2005.

* The Trix Rabbit locked inside an insane asylum
* The Griffen son dancing in a hula skirt, complete with coconut bra.
* Stewie in a Napoleon outfit at Waterloo.
* Quagmire in a Pulp Fiction parody where he has sex with an overdosed and unconcious Mia Wallace. Cue Dick Dale music and Quagmire dancing at the end doing the V's-across-the-eyes thing while going Giggety-giggety.

Anyone of these, and FG fans will shit their beds exalting on how rib-splintering this stupid show is.

Right, right. And "Family Guy" is never guilty of that.

no, i'm telling you, they already did a Trix Rabbit joke.

And then Robot Chicken did it last week, too.

The 3rd one, with Stewie solo, not so much.

Your are dumb.

so, Stewie dressed as Napolean at Waterloo would't be just the joke. It'd have to be something more like using that just as the establishing shot, then showing him going to war against life-size Stratego pieces or somesuch.

Then they'd take a break from fighting to have tea, and do an uncomfortably extended bit where they awkwardly try to fill conversation time.

"So...uh...hmm. Uh, been a Miner for a while, have you?" etc etc etc.

This is so OTM I dunno why I didnt think of it before! :/

This is so OTM! The only times it's ever funny are the episodes he is in!

"SILENCE, MAN-HORSE!"

ugh

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23373451

Yeah, news broke a couple days ago. Except for the rare "I'm dumb and think this is a great idea!" response, most people are against this eventuality.

let us never forget the episode where the "joke" was that quagmire raped and killed marge simpson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA_OqFm5mWo

jesus christ

most people are against this eventuality.

most people have moved on from both