Simpsons, South Park or Family Guy?

south park is the most amazing cartoon ever. the writers (trey and matt) are so clever and consistent - they have managed to create a show that is a portrayal of the way America sees itself - exaggerated and somewhat hysterical.
All the stereotypes are based around peoples true prejudices, and the conclusions that they draw about society should be appreciated for how insightful they are.
Simpsons and Family Guy are both funny shows, but South Park has a whole extra dimension to it's humour - intelligence.

People are still doing the "Family Guy copied the Simpsons" routine in 2008?

King of the Hill

Stressed Eric.
Bob and Margaret.
British animated comedy has a rich and proud history.

my problem with south park is the animation i think

Do people watch "American Dad!"?

I mean, there's been like 4 seasons of that show

I think you're on you own there, burt.

No, I'm just wondering who watches that show.

Do people watch "American Dad!"?

-- burt_stanton, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 20:28 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

AD is a lot better than it should be. It's not great by any stretch of the imagination, but it works. Francine and Roger are really well put together characters, the goldfish sucks but what can you do? Also the Joe Rogan gag in the first series: top five comedy moments of the decade.

King of the Hill is boring.most of the times it doesnt work imo

I like King of the Hill, it's like the jokes take a while to hit you.

The comedy is in how ridiculously understated everything is

souf pakr

also Family Guy could improve without stewy!

The Simpsons are getting weirdly conservative now ... Christian family values, really digging into poor people and the homeless with some jokes, etc. If George Bush the First saw the show now he'd probably be praising it.

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Family-Guy---Stewie-Most-Wanted-Poster-C10378191.jpeg

also Family Guy could improve without stewy!

-- Zeno, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 20:33 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Wrong wrong wrong. The Brian/Stewie relationship is the whole show, Peter's pratfalls are just a support detail.

my problem with south park is the animation i think

I think it's awesome. family guy has the shitter animation

Also i did a poll like this a while ago

The Brian/Stewie relationship is good i agree, but the solo stewie stuff (and theres lots of it) is mostly annoying as hell.plus his voice.

really? i didnt found it xpost

also Family Guy could improve without stewy!

Agreed. Mind you, I never watch it. Mostly because of Stewy. So... I agree.

I used to hate him, but I love Stewie now. He's become my favourite character. He makes me laugh without even saying anything.

everything about him is wrong. even the way he is painted

He makes me laugh without even saying anything.

-- nate woolls, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 20:42 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

This basically. Naked Stewie on a long walk accompanied by "The Hurricane" really is a defining FG moment.

I've never watched Family Guy. I probably should, huh?

no, you are one of a rare endangered species.

south park

Yeah south park.

Other cartoons i also <3 monkey dust, metalocalypse

another write in for king of the hill overall, though nothing can top the simpsons from season 3-7 imo.

nothing can top the simpsons from season 3-7 imo

otm

I don't get the big deal about the simpsons, I mean it's funny but it's not like BEST THING EVAR. Maybe it's a bit before my time.

another write in for king of the hill overall, though nothing can top the simpsons from season 3-7 imo.

-- omar little, Tuesday, May 27, 2008 8:56 PM

otm x 2

Simpsons had the longest brilliant streak. I don't bother with any of these shows anymore.

And Family Guy is just garbage.

Always was.

you just don't get it

Simpsons may be kinda bad these days, but like everyone said nothing can top it's clory days.

i definitely do not get family guy.

No, I get it. It's just always been stupid and without redeeming qualities.

xp

chaki and ethan should be here any minute to crawl up my ass about it

What I liked most about The Simpsons is how it so often broke into totally hysterical surrealness, like all the weird-ass dream and flashback sequences and musical numbers. I think that's one element of the Simpsons no other TV series has managed to match.

people complain about those very same things when it comes to family guy> "OMG IT'S ALL FLASHBACKS AND NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT".. I really don't care about character development in FG, it's totally besides the point of the show

IMO anyway

"I think that's one element of the Simpsons no other TV series has managed to match"

except family guy!

And South Park.

anyone who doesnt like south park best is a stupid

family guy will sacrfice everything (including character development) for the good joke.and i like it.

care crash=car crash, obv.

For me, the best Simpsons years were '94 to 2000 or thereabouts. I can't bring myself to sit through an episode anymore. South Park hit a peak around 2004 or so. King of the Hill was pretty good for a couple of years, but is mostly dull now.

I actually like American Dad!

Family Guy is still hilarious, so it's the easy winner here.

KOTH's humor is easier to appreciate if you've ever lived in texas i think

There are still Simpsons episodes I think about almost every day (the Homer weight gain one, the labor union one, etc.); the glory years of that show actually impacted my life and thinking.

The 2 episodes of "Family Guy" I've tried to sit through both had throwaway "shocking" AIDS gags.

The Simpsons at it's best is just something none of these other shows can fuck with. The episode where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse was on the other day and I remembered how brilliantly wtf the moment where Bart shows up at Milhouse's only to find that dude in the astronaut suit was. That whole episode is flawless start to finish and it's not even the best Simpsons episode. I don't know the other shows as well and people are making me reconsider FG which I've always written off but:

it basically being an elaborate sketch show

seems otm. Which is maybe why I don't rate it since although FG has had some amazing gags the pace/structure of the show makes it feel like at least 1/3 of any episode is filler connecting the jokes.

You really can't write off Family Guy. Its sense of timing and real-world awkwardness are amazing, and its approach of doing anything for a gag brings out some really good jokes. Yeah, the characters and plot are a little weak, but that's not why you watch a goddamn comedy show. At least that's not why I do.

You really can't write off Family Guy.

hahaha watch me!

family guy edges SP for me because of snappiness. i'll echo adamj's sentiment on why i watch cartoon comedy- to laugh. simpsons is basically the cosby show, and has been for a decade at this stage.

I wld rather watch Cosby Show than Family Guy.

i'd rather watch moths fucking than family guy

Oh my gosh! I would watch moths.

I was at a party last week, and this guy had a few moths growing in a terrarium of sorts. One of them had emerged from its cocoon; it was big and green and beatiful. Then the guy passed around a cocoon to people. It would sort of vibrate in the palm of your hand, like a "mexican jumping bean" or something...

Were these lunar moths????

KOTH's humor is easier to appreciate if you've ever lived in texas i think

-- batwing, Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:16 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Ya honestly I like all three of the polled shows but I think KOTH beats them all for sheer consistency.

Abbott, hmm, I can't remember what ha said they were called...but, I just looked at a picture of one on some website, and it looks like what he had.

Finally as a mature adult the Lunar Moth doesn't ever eat, instead it searches only for a mate so that it can breed and then it dies.

I still don't get why they animated that show.

xp as in King of the Hill, not Lunar Moths Fucking

Yeah, I've thought that before, that KOTH would work very well as a live-action thing.

Bobby & everyone would age.

Good point.

I don't understand how the woman does Bobby's voice without destroying her vocal chords.

Bobby's voice lady shows up in 'Grim Fandango.' It's kinda disturbing.

Family Guy is not even in the running. South Park is way better than The Simpsons is now, and has managed to maintain a high level of quality for a longer stretch than The Simpsons ever did. However, you kind of have to give it to The Simpsons for the magnificence of its glory years.

BTW, I'm sure this has been said at some point, but SP is easily at its best when it focuses on the interactions of the kids rather than trying to make a broad and usually ill-thought out point. Funny that Trey and Matt are so often spot on about what makes people tick on a personal small-scale level and so glib and clueless about larger political issues.

Wait Til Your Father Gets Home FTW!

i know no one wants to vote for the simpsons just because it's the obvious choice, the rockist choice, and it's been around forever and it sucks now, and people who point that out are as tiresome as the show's become.

but the show's best years -- i'd say about seasons 2 through 6 -- haven't aged a bit. forget the "warmth," that's a red herring -- it's there, but if you want to ignore it, cool; the show usually doesn't hit you over the head with it. there's usually a tidy moral, sure, but the characters themselves generally don't "get" it; there's no dreary "see, i've learned that..." speeches at the end like you get on south park. (chap is OTM about the small stuff being the best stuff on SP.)

what matters is that the show was consistently, AMAZINGLY consistently hilarious. virtually every single episode from the aforementioned seasons has like 15 gags that would be the "stand-out" on any episode of family guy that ppl would be quoting for years.

simpsons was also funny in kind of weird, unexpected ways -- like the george bush episode with all of bush's angry muttered asides ("probably stole a napkin!"), or marge's wonderful cluelessness (like when she tells bart he should take a potato to show and tell, or answers bart's fears that he'll get beaten up for wearing the dorky clothes she buys him by saying "well, anyone who beats you up for what you're wearing isn't your friend..."), or anything with milhouse. whereas on family guy or south park every gag feels very thought-out and deliberate, there's a nice sense of freewheeling sloppiness with classic simpsons, where there's so much stuff -- not all of it scanning as "funny" at first by any means -- that you wind up laughing at completely different things every time you see an episode.

i know no one wants to vote for the simpsons just because it's the obvious choice, the rockist choice, and it's been around forever and it sucks now, and people who point that out are as tiresome as the show's become.

but the show's best years -- i'd say about seasons 2 through 6 -- haven't aged a bit.

^^^so tiresome

whatever dude, all i know is homer being a dick in 1994 is still funny and peter griffin being a dick in 2004 is not

sorry if that makes me a luddite

Homer is never that much of a dick, you still like him

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Pointless personal anecdote: I think I was 13 when our local newspaper ran a story about South Park's pilot episode (the paper and the network showing South Park were owned by the same company). They had to air it at midnight or something due to the language and content, but that didn't stop me from staying awake until then, creeping into the living room, and sitting right close to the television with the volume as low as I could have it but still hear what was going on. The remote control was ready in my hand to flick the channel to something more wholesome should a parent randomly wander through the room...

It was totally disappointing, though. I thought South Park was rubbish then, and the episodes I've wasted time on since then haven't been any better. But then, I don't really find potty humour amusing, nor do I find their brand of comment-and-satire-on-current-events particularly clever (and I hated — absolutely fucking HATED — Team America). Family Guy is alright, but that's largely due to the aforementioned Brian/Stewie exchanges/scenes. I do think the show (at least in seasons 1-3, which I've actually seen) relies too heavily on Stewie for its more quotable, memorable lines (compared to the Simpsons, where the memorable/quotable lines have come not just from the main characters but the rest of the 'supporting cast', for lack of a better phrase). If that's at all relevant, I don't know. I like to think that certain Simpsons quotes/scenes/etc are ubiquitious enough to be used as recognisable reference points for most people of a certain age.

Anyway, I quite like King of the Hill, but for me nothing can beat the Simpsons from seasons 3-8. And before I get purists jumping on me for stretching that to season 8: it's the one with the Hank Scorpio episode. 'nuff said.

Sorry. I didn't really mean to write an entire fucking essay on the matter, esp as I didn't particularly say anything interesting.

Season 8 also has insanity peppers and Rex Banner.

The more I think about it, the more I think you can't even compare these three. I haven't seen any of these shows for a long time, but I saw the Simpsons movie recently and it reminded me that at this point it's a cultural institution more than it is a comedy show. Obviously at this point the actual product is irrelevant, but its influence is still very important and its being kept alive because not many of us can remember a time without it (I know I can't).

In its day the Simpsons changed comedy and pop-culture in general, but (or maybe 'so') I don't think it should be on this poll, because both South Park and Family Guy (among a lot of other stuff) wouldn't have existed without it. They come from very different worlds--i.e., pre-Simpsons and post-Simpsons--and it seems kind of weird to me to line them up and see which one is better.

I guess that won't stop you from shitting on Family Guy, though. Carry on.

latebloomer otm above re: family guy. i can watch it and laugh but my main problem isn't NO CHARACTERS, it's that it's so desperate to please. there's also a lot of male hetero insecurity, which is fucking retarded and hard to take.

i also like new simpsons.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Let the whining commence.

Sorry I mean continue.

(huge sigh of relief here)

I think this kinda proves my point.

http://fotolog.miarroba.com/f/5/2/9/4231529/25.jpg

Gah! I demand a re-count!

yeah family guy rated far too high

ugh you people are so lame

justice

yeah family guy rated far too high

^^^truth bomb, or something.

i guess i do know ILX better than i thought!

oh shit i forgot to vote, would have been south park, second preference family guy, sorry ppl

i mean i always WANT to be cool and hate on family guy but every time i see it i lol uncontrollably, and that ultimately is the mark of its quality.