FG & Simpsons

A group of us has been posting for quite some time reasons and thoughts about why we don't enjoy The Simpsons as much as we used to. Others have come along, questioning our reasons and thoughts, offering that maybe we're just older, or more bitter than when The Simpsons was in its earlier years.

I've doubted my own perceptions about recent Simpsons seasons, thinking that on some level--maybe these people are right. Maybe I _have_ lost my sense of humor to some degree. Maybe I've been fished-in by all the negative criticism on ATS in the last 4-5 years. Then, I happen to tape and watch last night's "Family Guy".

Tears were streaming down my face. My bronchial tubes made me sound like an old coot coughing up a lung. The neighbors, at 3am., must've confirmed their suspicions that I'm mentally ill....

Family Guy, erstwhile dumped on by many in A.T.S. (including Dean Humphries) as some sort of wanna-be Simpsons, absolutely kicked friggin' ass. I literally haven't laughed that hard for three years. Last night's Family Guy episode sits right up there with my _favorite_ Monty Python episode, SIMPSONS episode, and (yes) Bloom County strips. Seth MacFarlane is the comedy genius for the 20-ought decade.

Blasphemy? Hell no. Overstating? Hell no. Why did it work me into such a lather? The only explanation is that it was excellent. If Mr. MacFarlane can hold on to this level of quality and this concept for his show, it will not only approach the funniest of Simpsons episodes--it will surpass it. I would gladly match last night's episode with any of The Simpsons' classic funny episodes. Gladly. And this, from a guy who many might think is as obsessive about The Simpsons as they come.

The feeling I had last night during and after my late-night viewing session is what the Simpsons is missing, and has been missing for probably the better part of five years. The quality of the episode hardly dropped (ironically, only at the beginning of the third act--where the Griffins start whaling on each other--was there the slightest let down in "funny"). Now, the Griffins will NEVER have the emotional depth of The Simpsons, that's for sure. That's an entire different thread. But rest assured--they absolutely are the funniest family (real, or otherwise) on TV right now. PERIOD.

The show that many Simpsons fans dismissed as a "cheap ripoff" or "wanna-be" or "crude" is nothing like that. It thoroughly destroyed any recent Simpsons episode for quality, and the efforts of the writers and creators of FG in this instance HUMILIATED any efforts by The Simpsons staff for at least four years. I have been converted to the gospel of Family Guy. It's definitely not the same product as "The Simpsons". There won't be any tears of emotion shed, or any emotional connections made; but, tears of laughter are far more likely for _that_ show than for any future Simpsons episode.

Simpsons writers, if you've ever read a post in your life, read this one: Family Guy's writers just kicked your ass Wednesday night. The gauntlet has been thrown down; IMO you'll NEVER make a new episode of The Simpsons that funny. Prove me wrong.

Maybe I/we haven't been wrong about "The Simpsons" losing its touch these last few years. Maybe there's something to our argument. I think Family Guy has just justified any arguments to date.

The Rack wrote:

I agree. Last night's FG was hilarious. Hell, all of the episodes in FG's season so far have been great, with the possible exception of the "flag girl" episode, which was still very funny. I'm going to hold judgement until I see The Simpsons' 13th season, but Family Guy, in it's current state, is better than the majority of recent Simpsons' episodes.

== Mike Reed

I think what works for FG, which includes some Simpsons episodes, is that the creators take a family sitcom environment, and crank it up to the very absurd. The funniest momnet last season of TS, was when Homer was captured, and taken to the island based upon the series "The Prisoner". An episode fails when they get TOO heartfelt (such as the episode featuring the convicted artist). Conan O'Brien used parody as a vehicle to write TS episodes, which is why those classics are the best.

Later!

"In the end, there can be only one, and it may as well be me!"-Kenny (from Highlander: The Series)

Nicely put, and you are absolutely correct. I've been saying many of these same things since I caught the first Family Guy after the Superbowl a few years back. I, like you, can literally not recall when I have laughed so hard at a TV show.

Gare

Guy

Hear hear...FG is the leader of the pack right now. Simpsons, King of the Hill, Futurama, I enjoy them all, but none of them come close to FG in making me laugh so much. Simpsons is only sporadically funny these days, it seems more concerned with getting guest star voices on than actually generating laughs. Did we really need an episode featuring NSync? The shark is in the tank, the motorbike is revving up...

Watching simpsons and family guy in England it is hard to appreciate which came first but it would appear to me that there is a certain degree of plagiarism between the two in both plots and incidental jokes. Two things that spring to mind are an episode based around an indian casino and licking a toad for its psychotropic effect both of which have appeared in both simpsons and Family guy. This could of course all be coincidental but on the other hand it would be hard to deny that the scope for either consciously or subconsciously copying on the part of the writers is great particularly with the pressure to come up with new story lines.

The Rack wrote in message news:qseh7.5626$[email]...

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"Bill" wrote in message news:3Cnh7.203$[email]...

watching FG in england is pointless as they're cutting so much of it out.

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Well, look at that how much tastes can differ. I've never been a Simpsons fan (due to the disastrous German overdubs) but I started on with the US versions of Futurama and then came to love Family Guy. I can freely admit that this episode 'lethal weapons' was the most boring and crappiest Family Guy ep ever.

I snipped all your comments on Seth being a genius simply because they better fit to all other eps but not to the last. This ep only had ppl kicking each other (comes good as a joke but not necessarily all the time) but nothing cool or funny. Even Stewie bored the hell out of me.

If anyone really wants to go fo Famguy start out with these episodes which have hilarious jokes, more of Peters tries to become the world's accepted moron #1 and crazy ideas:

13 1ACX14 S02E06 Death Is A Bitch 12 1ACX13 S02E05 Love Thy Trophy 05 1ACX05 S01E05 A Hero Sits Next Door 10 2ACX06 S02E03 Da Boom

-< Moon >-

"Moon" wrote in message news:[email]...

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Naw; that was the "Real World" parody. There was nothing "crappy" about the new FG IMO. It was brilliant.

The New Yorkers invading Quahog was very good satire.

See, that's the thing. The episodes you seem to like revolve around dialogue-type jokes. I'm not saying I don't like them; I just think "visual satire"--where we actually _watch_ social commentary instead of _hearing_ it is much funnier. The episode was probably the best satire on TV violence I've ever seen. That includes 7F09 from Season 2 of The Simpsons.

I like intelligent commentary that one _watches_, like in the hilarious movie "Best Of Show". On suggestion from people at ATS, I rented and saw "Kentucky Fried Movie", which seems to depend on dialogue for social commentary. I could see the jokes coming a mile away. There were a few chuckles, but IMO it wasn't that clever.

That was okay, but in no way IMO was it as funny as "Lethal Weapons" (I guess that's the title of it). There's only so much of Norm MacDonald I can watch.

"The Rack" wrote in message news:djzh7.1071$[email]...

D'Oh! I meant "Best In Show". Of course you realize, this means suicide for me.

"Moon" wrote in message news:[email]...

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don't forget "sexual Harrasment" my favorite episode

"My other penis is a vagina."

Alex

EL4 wrote in message news:9m6ups$rbd$[email]...

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"dave h." wrote in message news:[email]...

It wasn't just the slapstick; but, what slapstick was there was very smart. Peter's reaction after his night when Lois was "the man" (just sitting there, staring into space, eating graham crackers) was one of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV.

Why can't you like both? Something about these shows that is so mutually antithetical?

Simpsons has established a record as one of the few shows on TV to do social satire. FG mines the detritus of pop culture and reveals the absurdity of our nostalgia for '70s TV shows, for example.

I'm not worried about whether one is funnier or superior or more moral or offers more profound or biting social observations than the other. Just enjoying them both. I suspect at least some of the people who produce both shows enjoy each other's show.

"poldy" wrote in message news:[email]...

If this is directed at me, I believe your comments are misdirected.

I'm not saying I don't like one, and I like the other. I'm saying that the contrast in quality presented by the superior FG episode and the recent Simpsons seasons was very clear last Wednesday.

This is an entirely different point. Certainly, the Simpsons at one point was one of the funniest things on TV. No so IMO recently. FG is the funniest thing on TV right now IMO. The quality of The Simpsons has been in question for the better part of the last 5 years. Now, I know it's not imagined. I know it's not a matter of old-time fans being bitter, or humorless. There's something to the argument that "The Simpsons" has dropped in quality, proven by the recent terrific FG episode. That was the point I was making.

Let me first say that I have not watched the last Family Guy episode, so I will make my comment based on all the Family Guy episodes that I have watched (all except the last one) First off, I believe that The Simpsons writers seem like they're running out of ideas. There are no longer the kind of high-brow humor that I often encounter in older episodes. But I think that Family Guy does not even comes close to the level of humor that is present in The Simpsons. The humor seems crude and does not approach the level of sophistication that made The Simpsons a staple of American popular culture. I can not imagine Family Guy writers ever making a subtle reference to Ayn Rand or even A Streetcar named Desire. When watching Family Guy, I feel like they writers are trying to entertain a bunch of fourteen-year-old boys. I tried to detect subtle references or parodies of obscure works and could find none. The references that I encountered are rather explicit, and even seven-year-old kids know about them. Where's the fun in trying to detect the joke and knowing that you "get" it while others don't? Family Guy may be a funny show, but it will never come close to the level of sophistication that The Simpsons has, even now, when the level is declining.

"The Rack" wrote in message news:qseh7.5626$[email]...

we're

years.

that

of

an

their

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Guy

can

not

would

obsessive

session

"wanna-be"

Simpsons

four

emotion

more

has

Guy

"Dung Nguyen" wrote:

IOW, Family Guy doesn't support an elitist attitude. Works for me.

Seriously, I don't think of the Simpsons as elitist. Nor do I think of Family Guy as being written for 14-year-olds. I think you're getting different sets of references in both shows. If there's a reference in either show that you just don't recognize, you're not going to know it was there. And both shows have had jokes based on references that I just didn't get until later, when I was exposed to what they were referencing. It really depends on how your experiences intersect with the writers' experiences.

Kimba

"Kimba W. Lion" wrote in message news:[email]...

I think Dung was referring to the style of humor; I don't think s/he meant that the show was meant for one snobby set of people.

Jokes often _are_ more funny when one realizes that others could be fooled by the irony, or that others might miss a reference. Naturally, this happens in a split second--none of us sits down analyzing a show, figuring out if we should laugh or not. Many of the funniest jokes in an episode, I realize later, are the type where a majority of folks could be fooled by the sarcasm.

Well, FG *does* tend to reference pop-culture more (and it does that well, BTW). I remember seeing a parody of the "Chuck Wagon Dog Food" commercial (from the late 60's/early 70's) during a Family Guy episode, where the dog chases the little wagon into the kitchen cabinet door; upon opening it, he sees nothing but a bag of dog food. That was a piss-in-your-pants-laughing reference from pop culture that was quite obscure; it was a reference that only older folks would get.

The Simpsons (at its best) referenced high art and high society as well. But I wouldn't base my enjoyment on either series on whether one or the other made references to nobler elements. I think plot/story/theme have much more to do with my enjoyment of the show in either case.

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didn't get

Certainly if all we did was spend time reading books in the library and renting art films, older Simpsons episodes would be more likely to entertain us than episodes of similar intelligence where only pop culture is referenced.

"Dung Nguyen" wrote in message news:9m7le1$me1$[email]...

Ooo, that doesn't bode well :)

out

Quite a statement, considering you don't watch the show. Certainly, someone just watching last Wednesday's episode with little understanding of the current state of TV violence in America could come away thinking that much of the episode was just crude slapstick. (I'm not saying that would be true in your case). But, there were smart references to movies (Superman II) as well as social satire (New Yorkers invade New England), and it was just a very, very funny episode.

Rand or even A

Family Guy certainly isn't the same product as the old Simpsons. I said this in my original post.

a bunch of fourteen-year-

works and could find none.

IMO, traditionally, the Simpsons writers never set out to reference anything. In the course of writing a _story_ or a _plot_, opportunities presented themselves to include the references. IMO they never set out to reference the Dumont network, M.C. Escher, or Henri Rousseau. OTOH, they _have_ built a plot around elements from higher society (Streetcar Named Desire, Patton) as has Family Guy (The King and I). Subtle references are certainly a flavor of many older Simpsons episodes, but they weren't the fabric that held episodes together. A good plot and underlying theme did that. Always.

Those are exactly the types of jokes I'm talking about. Jokes that are given away by dialogue don't work for me. If it's "visual satire" we're talking about, one has to understand and recognize the _situation_ from our own lives. Nothing is spelled out. In fact, all dialogue in such an episode may be ironic to what's actually being said through the situation.

This episode was based solely on a satiric observation of society; I'm sure there are many people who didn't understand that. But I did, and "dave h." indicated that he did.

of

declining.

Well, that's an opinion. I think the show can go anywhere it wants right now, although I think it less likely that it will have the emotional content "The Simpsons" had. IMO Seth MacFarlane is a brilliant satirist, even if he's never heard of Ayn Rand.

I agree that the last FG smoked recent TS eps. I didn't feel that it was the best FG this year, tho. I'm still partial to the British taking over ep. The Tron ref alone made me stare slack-jawed at the screen, and I laughed my ass off when Stewie looked at Eliza's panties. I find Stewie's rants to be one of the funniest parts of the show, and I think he just sat there and died in the last ep.

Bear in mind that I think Malcolm is also far superior to recent TS eps. Malcom has excellent characters, all with very distinct and entertaining personalities.

In all fairness, I finally caved in and admitted to myself that I like the recent Lisa vs. the bully ep of TS. Otto pulling a wheelie rules. I WAS a bit confused by the odd cartoonish violence of Maggie nailing Homer.... WTF was that about?

The Rack wrote:

"The Rack" wrote in message news:qseh7.5626$[email]...

that

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That episode was "Lethal Weapons", aired on Aug 22. Very, very funny. I just saw the Aug 29 episode. What a difference a week makes. The 29th episode was very flat, boring, and unfunny... with the exception of the Mr. Peabody & Sherman parody where Brian plays Peabody & Peter is Sherman. I'd say to those who responded to my original post, calling "Lethal Weapons" a boring, flat episode that the 29th episode better fits that description. Not very good at all (IMO, of course).