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.

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.

incredible that all three of these shows are still on the air

I have been watching the latest South Park season, it's kinda surreal given I haven't watched this show in years, last time I saw a full episode was probably 2012. on one hand it's still hypermodern, reacting pretty much in real time to the news, on the other they're still doing the exact same jokes they've been doing for 25 years now? their sense of humor hasn't evolved one bit. and the character models have stayed true to the original cardboard cutouts this entire time. even the meta self-referential shtick is something they've been doing for decades.

it's interesting because modern Simpsons is pretty much unrecognizable - I see clips here and there and a few weeks ago I watched 10 minutes of it when it came on after football, the show is just so incredibly weird now and not in a good way. it's a show whose target audience are people who were not even alive when the show was a huge cultural touchstone and nothing about the show itself resembles the glory days at all, especially since all the main voice actors are like 75 now. its not like, I dunno, Season 14 or whatever, where the show sucked but it still felt like the Simpsons.

can't even imagine what Family Guy is like now, though I can actually see that one holding up somewhat, one because every character can be described in like three words, two because all the random cutaway shit kinda resembles what social media feeds are like now. I sure as hell aint gonna watch it to find out

Feel like Family Guy and South Park have an evergreen audience in preteen boys but who is even watching the Simpsons in 2025?

I don't think I have ever seen Family Guy, and I haven't seen The Simpsons in decades. But as far as I can tell, South Park has remained remarkably consistent. I know my older daughter has recently started watching it for the first time, and she's constantly relaying things to me, like OMG, did you see the new South Park? I guess that makes it still trenchant as both satire and provocation.

It's been a very long time since I saw the first South Park movie. I was reading a review of it recently, a newer one, that pointed out a lot of its edginess has lessened a little bit because so much of pop culture has caught up to its level of coarseness.

I have actually been introducing my 11-year-old to the Simpsons, he got interested because a friend of his has a dad who's evangelical about it and turned him into a fan. Rewatching some of the classic eps I am cognizant of how many dated references there are -- they're practically constant -- and I debated watching new eps with my son that would have contemporary ones he would get. Ultimately ixnayed that though, in part because I can't imagine tolerating the abomination of 30+ seasons on Simpsons, but also because I realize I probably didn't get most of the references even when they were contemporaneous, and it didn't diminish my fanaticism at all. Like we just watched "Who Shot Mr. Burns" and undoubtedly I knew nothing about Twin Peaks at the time, heavily referenced, let alone Dallas and "Who Shot JR", which the whole thing is parodying. Didn't matter one iota, that shit is still pure gold

Also your kid will eventually absorb pop culture detritus from before they were born. I dunno if that's desirable or not, but by gum it was good enough for me growing up.

yup, like I did

frogbs, the new season is really terrible but all the little movies they did for Paramount+ are really good, especially the COVID ones

Season 19, where they wrestle with their outdated '90s humor style in the new woke landscape is really special.

which show are you talking about whiney

I did recently finish watching the classic Simpsons era with my 8 year old daughter, I was genuinely surprised at how much she liked it. and how well those episodes held up. yes some of the references are dated and I had to pause to explain certain things but that's the brilliance of the show, the references are mostly just a bonus if you get them, if you don't the jokes still work.

curious if that's the same for old South Parks, can't imagine how well episodes circa 2009 or so hold up that reference very specific things going on then that nobody remembers now, or if people even watch old South Park episodes at all anymore. I agree with Josh though I don't think the show has ever dipped in quality, admittedly I've missed the last decade and a half or so

xpost South Park

Yeah, I did a South Park rewatch recently and the late-Obama era stuff is like an absolute cemetery for memory-holed information. Like a whole episode on Alec Baldwin losing his talk show that I didn't remember he had in the first place. There's another episode where Mr. Hankey is run out of town for tweeting like Rosanne Barr

South Park's libertarian politics really got grating towards the middle seasons, like the global warming episode, which is basically just characters vocalizing Parker/Stone's views on it (namely that it doesn't exist), the Goobacks episode (which had a lot of funny moments but then essentially blamed poor countries and their citizens for their plight at the end), ManBearPig, etc.

that shit was also in there in the beginning but there was a time where it was just so oppressively in your face and annoying. obviously they haven't really stopped that but not terribly surprised they hate Trump because real Libertarians would!

Family Guy, I haven't even heard anybody talk about in public in years . I don't know anybody who still watches it.

the World of Warcraft episode is still one of my favorites

the clips I've seen from the new South Park seasons look much less annoyingly rw libertarian than the ones from the middle seasons that got me hating the show, had a hope that maybe they had matured out of it finally. also everything they are covering is stuff my kids talk about, so it may be that they have kids a similar age. tempted to download some episodes, but not very tempted

I watched some old simpsons and KOTH clips on youtube a while back and then got loads of recommendations for South Park and Family Guy stuff off the back of that

a lot of the South Park stuff was still funny to me, but obviously a lot of the racist/transphobic humour is really jarringly cuntish. a lot of it is just that a lot of the voice acting and purely goofy non-edgy humour is funny to me

Nothing in any of the Family Guy ones raised even the hint of a smile, just felt like a total relic of a bygone age, vaguely like being stuck in a room with someone in too much cocaine who thinks everything they say is funny but none of it is

Classic Simpsons still great on rewatch, kind of funny how central TV addiction was to its early satire and worldview, they never really seemed to grasp the nature of the Internet in the same way in the relatively short period between the Internet becoming widespread and the show being remotely watchable

obviously couldn't countenance wanting to watch some season 94 episode where Marge's burgeoning friendship with Bumblebee Man is threatened when he loses all his savings to Homer and Kearny's bogus cryptocurrency business or whatever

Neanderthal, Matt and Trey literally became less libertarian years ago and the show followed. They even did a whole episode basically apologizing to Al Gore for ManBearPig!

I will admit I have only seen bits and pieces of the last decade or so