Family Guy, The Simpsons, South Park- chicken soup for the pop-culture junkie soul?
 

Seriously. . . whatever happened to comedy that doesn't rely on pop-culture references for laughs?

Not that pop-culture references aren't funny- they are pretty well done in tv shows like Arrested Development- but that show didn't rely on those to be funny.

Of course everything joke needs to have some frame of reference for it to be funny, I guess pop-culture comedy just appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Yeah, but the Simpsons aren't just a "pop-culture-reference humorfest", they actually DO have real jokes. Like, I think pop culture referencing makes up perhaps.. 20% of the show. The Simpsons are timeless.

The other two shows you mentioned, though, wow.. yeah.. they could barely exist on their own merits, because they base whole episodes around making fun of other things in pop culture. South Park is by far one of the worst fucking shows I've ever seen, just terrible, I've seen about 50+ episodes of it and haven't laughed once (can't believe South Park is left to be on season infinity but a good fucking show like Futurama or Super Milk Chan is shunned!). Family Guy is pretty hit-or-miss as a television show, but indeed it's random flashbacks to pop culture pretty much make up 75% of the humor -- though, they DO riff on a lot of obscure pop culture moments that might go over some younger viewer's heads (like commercials from the 80's). So yeah.

My television is broken and has been for most of the year.

The Simpsons are the only thing I watch on TV...


Okay, I lied: I turn on X-Play and stare at Morgan Webb. I put it on mute.

it doesnt bother me how a show makes me laugh

I can enjoy southpark, family guy, simpsons, curb your enthusiasm, the office, the mighty boosh and other shows and not worry what is using pop culture references to get laughs or not. I really dont give a fuck, as long as im laughing ill be happy.

Very true, alien anal, but I think constant pop culture referencing gets very tiring. ESPECIALLY with South Park, who builds entire episodes around one joke. I mean, South Park to me is the perfect example of a show that would make for awesome shorts.. maybe an Adult Swim-type show so it'd only have be 11 minutes in length... but they just take one annoying pop culture thing and they beat the joke into the fucking ground for 22 minutes. Rah.

there is so much more to southpark though than this 'one joke' the whole show is a constant parody of stupid shows and cliche things you see in movies or life. i think there is a lot of missed jokes in southpark.

Well, yeah, if you wanna get down to it, there is a bit more than that, but it doesn't help that the characters are annoying and the creators think they're more clever than they really are. It may not be a "one-joke" show, but it is a "one-note" show.

Regarding Trey and Matt, I really like Orgazmo and ... Cannibal! The Musical is boring, but it's not bad (probably one of the worst Troma films).. but man, I HATED Team America... and never saw BASEketball..

why did you hate team america?

i didn't think it was funny.

yeh but to say you HATED it seems like there was more about it u didnt like than just not finding it funny..or im wrong and that is all.

I gotta say I love all these shows; The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Futurama, King of the Hill, Daria, Adult Swim....its really great lighthearted entertainment.

fuck all the high brow shit. family guy IS inanely funny. simpsons WERE inanely funny. south park is just stupid. love these shows

american dad.... meh, its ok.

I didn't think it was funny. It bored me, it annoyed me, etc. Again, something that could have been a short film and would have been reasonably entertaining; over the course of a whole film, it was just... mehhhh...
I think Trey and Matt are talented people, at least so far as having interesting ideas and having the ability to write catchy songs (weird but true). However, the execution of their products is always a bit long winded, monotonous, and droning.

they should rerelease their cannibal the musical film. that was funny!

Family Guy is weird to me, because I think it was really good for a while and then really awful and I've been watching it again and think it's pretty good. Simpsons have always been good; I just think their early episodes were great. But it's not like the new episodes are BAD; they're just... well... I mean, when you lose Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, what can you really do?

American Dad is probably the only show that approaches South Park's level of badness.

family guty is now excellent again. it did go through a slupm but from season 4 i think, it got back its original writers and cast. i think its just a great show and always makes me laugh.....

slupm=slump btw

The Simpsons is an institution. South Park continues where The Simpsons leaves something, what with The Simpsons world being bound into some sense of reality and continuity. Family Guy isn't good enough to lick either shows' balls.

Family Guy is one of the crappiest shows ever made. I've gotten into vicious arguments with people over this pap. I can't believe people like it. It's completely derivative. Its idea of a joke is to almost indentically recreate something from pop culture. Their biggest crutch is "remember that time when..." or "this is just like that time when..."

It's also horribly offensively abusive towards all their female characters. It seems like every episode a woman is being abused in horrible ways.

Finally it's poorly drawn, poorly animated, and badly colored. There is nothing redeeming about the show.

Exactly. You can bet good money that one of those lines will appear at least 5 times in every episode.

God, yes.
Even if it wasn't constantly going for the lowest common denominator, this show is unwatchable to me because I can't stand to look at it. The art style is just too "Sunday Funnies" for me. Yecch.

but thats what the show does... you dont watch the office expecting it to be like the mighty boosh.

im sick of these cartoon wars.

If you think the new simpsons episodes are better then ANY south park episode EVER.....That's odd.

After 10 years South Park is still funny whereas the Simpsons started to become horrible after 10 years.

But I'll agree 100% that early simpsons own.

haha, that time she was gone had me sad.

fuck arguing, you like, we like.... it would be an awful boring place if we all had tjhe same opinions......too laugh is to live or something...
we can all agree that this is the real funny shit tho....

^^^Good call, and I personally can never get sick of watching this:

I'm all about Bob Clampett Bugs Bunny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l8mWGCeBu8

YES!
Some of the said shows (Simpsons/South Park/Family Guy) have made me laugh a few times but I don't think any of them are brilliant or anything. Perhaps the Simpsons at some point, though I have never really muched watch of it.

I read John K.'s blog regularly.
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

Funny how (in England at least) Ren and Stimpy has been pretty much forgotten about, i actually think its really good fun.

The problem with Family Guy is the characters are so 2 Dimensional (no pun intended) though i do think Stewie is a really great creation. The reason the Simpsons is good is because you actually care about them and what happens to them, and i disagree with South Park being toted as "highbrow", people of almost all ages can enjoy it for various reasons, whether you like the social satire or the scat humour.

Incidentally i think the main constituent part of South Park is social satire rather than Pop Culture - like the way they did Scientology, it was about the way people behave under the influence of Religion.
Family Guy just goes "Oh look, its Gary Coleman, he's short..." yawn yawn yawn.

Tom and Jerry is hilarious. As are most old cartoons. Old disney, warner brothers, and MGM shorts were great.

Newer cartoons make me laugh. . . but I think there is something to be said for universality.

The Marx brothers will always be hilarious.

Absurdity and irony are things that will never grow old. Pop-culture references will.

i caught a bit of the south park that had bono in it recently..not a quality show but they do pull off some funny shit once in awhile
the bono joke made me laugh my ass off, he was galloping through the african village singing "yeah yeah yeah yeah"

also family guy makes me chortle from time to time, i like when they make fun of meg and once kate moss was on and she was walking through this room and she slipped through a crack in the floor

The unaired Ren and Stimpy episode "Man's Best Friend" has made me laugh and squirm on many levels.

ren and stimpy gets gross pretty frequently. i dig it.

The one I'm talking about had a whole militaristic/homosexual/bestiality/Dom-Sub thing going on between George Liquor and R&S that was insane.

"Now you need some discipline. It's discipline that begets love."

yeah, and one time i was watching it it blatantly showed a rat's ass, complete with shit-stained asshole
i swear i could almost smell it through the tv. i was a little repulsed