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[Sir Pseudonymous]

I always found it ironic, given it airs on the arch-rightist Fox. It also always seemed to be more thumbing their nose at the channel than actual preaching. Sort of like the Simpsons openly mocking News Corp.


Really, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are the only shows I regret not being able to watch, on account of having neither cable nor decent internet. D:

[Jackrabbit]

The Daily Show and Colbert Report are on at 5:30 and 6 am respectively. I've started getting up at 5 in the morning just for that.

[Aqizzar]

What channel?  On the American Comedy Central they're on back-to-back like five times a day all over the clock.

[Jackrabbit]

Comedy Central (just Comedy Central) over here.

I don't know, it's possible I'm just not looking hard enough and making it more difficult for myself out of ignorance. But whatever, dawn's pretty over here.

[Fooj]

I'm thinking it's about the time Family guy started having a definitive political (and religious) slants that it started bugging me, regardless of me agreeing with a few things here or there. A few times I began to think Brian was a self-insert character. Even South Park (With it's almost satirical takes on things), Futurama, and Simpsons managed to say relatively neutral in comparison to some of the newer Family Guy episodes. And then I recall less off-the-wall humor and more humor I need to read entertainment weekly to understand, which really started to ruin it for me. And the entertainment weekly humor about the latest someoneIdon'tgiveadamnabout contained fewer jokes and more "Ha! I made a reference!" I think there's a TV tropes article on how simple cultural references =/= humor. More and more plots started relying on Peter being too stupid to live broke a lot of the suspension of disbelief. Bad writing.

I don't see the justification of Seth Mcfarsomething having three identical shows either.

I miss Futurama. It had a wide spectrum of low to high class humor, coupled in with plenty of geek culture, decent drama when it wanted drama, and some over-arching plots.

[Jackrabbit]

I think Futurama's returning? It was announced somewhere.

[Fooj]

I think I just started to notice the bad writing in Family Guy is what happened.

I think Futurama's returning? It was announced somewhere.

This summer, over 20 episodes if I recall on Comedy Central. I think like 24 of them.

Ha! I knew it!

Though some people will say that Family Guy should have stayed canceled since the first couple episodes after its permanent return in season four weren't as good as the pre-cancellation episodes, there is a general consensus that seasons six and seven have some of the worst episodes in the show's history, partially due to the Writers' Guild strike that happened between 2007 and 2008 (Seth MacFarlane refused to work on them because he wanted to support the striking writers), and partially due to the Family Guy writers either coming up with crummy episode premises or executing them in ways that leave some fans wondering why they even bother watching the show in the first place.

[Aqizzar]

And where exactly is that from?  It's not much anything without knowing who said it, except that I guess you like the sound of it.

[MrWiggles]

I always found it ironic, given it airs on the arch-rightist Fox. It also always seemed to be more thumbing their nose at the channel than actual preaching. Sort of like the Simpsons openly mocking News Corp.


Really, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are the only shows I regret not being able to watch, on account of having neither cable nor decent internet. D:

Those who does the news is very different then who does the rest of the programming.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

A few times I began to think Brian was a self-insert character.

I believe you're right there, he does seem to be a Mary Sue. He's voiced by the creator of the show, and tends to be a) the most vocally political character, and b) the only one not depicted as a psychotic idiot most of the time, with a dash of degradation to try to throw off the Mary Sue vibe.

Even South Park (With it's almost satirical takes on things), Futurama, and Simpsons managed to say relatively neutral in comparison to some of the newer Family Guy episodes.

Futurama yes, Simpsons yes. South Park I have a hard time believing. It's always had a very strong, heavy handed libertarian message to it. I can only think of a few episodes that didn't revolve around some libertarian moral or another. I mean, it's still a show I watch when I get the chance, I just have to have an anti-troll filter up to avoid getting pissed off at some it. The same sort of mental state you need to avoid exploding with RAEG when looking at anything on, say, 4chan.

I miss Futurama. It had a wide spectrum of low to high class humor, coupled in with plenty of geek culture, decent drama when it wanted drama, and some over-arching plots.

Yeah, Futurama was great. Haven't seen many episodes though, sadly. I've also heard that Comedy Central has commissioned a season or two, though I don't know the details of that.

I always found it ironic, given it airs on the arch-rightist Fox. It also always seemed to be more thumbing their nose at the channel than actual preaching. Sort of like the Simpsons openly mocking News Corp.


Really, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are the only shows I regret not being able to watch, on account of having neither cable nor decent internet. D:

Those who does the news is very different then who does the rest of the programming.

It's owned and run by the same company. Admittedly that company is more sociopathic than political, when it comes down to it, but they're still best known for their carefully crafted disinformation machine.

[Leafsnail]

I always found the heavy-handed lib'rul preaching in Family Guy to be irritating.

Haven't really got too much of that.  Then again, I've only ever watched episodes from seasons 1-3.

[ToonyMan]

Futurama is the best of them all.

[Cthulhu]

Brian is 100% Seth McFarlane.

Only character that isn't retarded, primary mouthpiece for Seth's political views, hot girlfriend (Well, actually a drawing of a hot girlfriend), occasional ham-fisted "Look he has problems he's not a Mary Sue" episodes, totally a self-insert.

[Fooj]

And where exactly is that from?  It's not much anything without knowing who said it, except that I guess you like the sound of it.

Sorry. That was from TVtropes, which puts Family Guy under Seasonal Rot, just like I suspected.

Even South Park (With it's almost satirical takes on things), Futurama, and Simpsons managed to say relatively neutral in comparison to some of the newer Family Guy episodes.

Futurama yes, Simpsons yes. South Park I have a hard time believing. It's always had a very strong, heavy handed libertarian message to it. I can only think of a few episodes that didn't revolve around some libertarian moral or another. I mean, it's still a show I watch when I get the chance, I just have to have an anti-troll filter up to avoid getting pissed off at some it. The same sort of mental state you need to avoid exploding with RAEG when looking at anything on, say, 4chan.

SouthPark is neutral to me because of the extreme satire they usually do, as the show's first priority is to offend everyone. I actually think you could see any slant you like to South Park, depending on the episodes you watch. There's "SouthPark is Libertarian" articles google has found me, but reading around more I find that those omit the episodes and episode details that weren't libertarian and focus on the ones that were. Some of the episodes do have a slant, but it's not consistent between episodes. Surprisingly deep satire juxtaposed to the extremely crude nature, some of the South Park episodes I consider nearly art.

Family Guy has Brian, the self insert and completely reasonable guy, flat out state political or religious opinion X. No joke to it.Family Guy uses more of a slanted mockery. Like "Dur hurr, in the universe where X never happened, the world is so perfect even Meg is hot." It's boiled down to the point where they can simply state "opinion X" with hardly any joke to it at all beyond them connecting a particular group of viewers with similar opinions. If only one interest group finds it funny, it's going to polarize viewers about the show, which I think it has.

On the other hand, Futurama, I recall reading about their gag approval process. They literally had a hiring process by profession, IE they tried to get a mathematician, a physicist, etc. Their jokes must be approved by everyone else on the team as funny. Ends up with a wide spectrum of humor where an individual gag can be funny on different levels and viewpoints, and I think they did a fair job of shooting down offensive material.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

SouthPark is neutral to me because of the extreme satire they usually do, as the show's first priority is to offend everyone. I actually think you could see any slant you like to South Park, depending on the episodes you watch. There's "SouthPark is Libertarian" articles google has found me, but reading around more I find that those omit the episodes and episode details that weren't libertarian and focus on the ones that were. Some of the episodes do have a slant, but it's not consistent between episodes. Surprisingly deep satire juxtaposed to the extremely crude nature, some of the South Park episodes I consider nearly art.

Yes, it takes shots at most people, but from what I recall, it consistently portrays characters who profess some idea that falls under the creators' beliefs (which appears to be pretty solidly "mainstream" libertarian (as in, not tinfoil hat militia types or objectivists), though naturally it expands out of politics into just personal opinions, too) in a positive light, while either portraying characters who oppose those views/profess views they oppose negatively, or having characters who are consistently portrayed negatively (like Cartman and Garrison) profess views they don't like.

And yes, sometimes it is just a scorched-earth-wacky-obscene-fun-fest.