What Do You Like/Dislike About Adult Comedies/Animated Sitcoms

[Avaitor]

And here's the opposite end of the spectrum, comedies made for older viewers. Be it Fox's animated sitcoms, [adult swim], or the handful of oddball shows in between, I'm sure you all like at least a couple of these. Which do you think stand out as the best examples of animated comedy made for older viewers, and what do you most look for in series like that?

Like I mentioned in the other comedy thread, I like strong characterization and humor I can sink my teeth into. I can get into odder jokes and satirical stuff, provided that it doesn't get to the point of being too weird or uncomfortable, like a lot of Williams Street originals, or too socially charged, like some South Park or Family Guy episodes. SP has a lot of episodes where I think that the message doesn't overlap with it's enjoyment factor and can be entertaining, and even FG can sometimes get a point across without being too one-sided or preachy, but neither are consistent in that regard at all, and that's a weakness that both shows share.

I can also laugh hard at crude humor, like sex jokes or swearing, but I'm also a little picky there. I need more than a simple dick joke or F-bomb to get a laugh, and shock value jokes don't work when you can call them a mile away. I actually tend to prefer clever innuendos in "kids" shows like Rocko and Johnny Bravo than a lot of the jokes like that in series made for my age, since there's more thought and genuine shock put into those than in a lot of the [as] comedies.

I don't know if I have a favorite type of humor at all. I like slapstick, but good slapstick seems to be a dead art, and doesn't really work for these kinds of shows. Sharp dialogue is great, and a lot of series here pull that off very well, The Simpsons and Daria in particular being good examples of such, but I also don't like when sarcasm or retorts revert to straight-up cruelty, or where some conversations seem forced and unfunny. And I really like gentle character humor, but that's something where it's mileage varies in these kinds of shows. King of the Hills is a show that does that type of humor very well. Futurama as well to an extent, but it gets a little less gentle in many instances.

I think anything here can work well, and combined can make for an entertaining show. When done well, though. Some people in the industry are better at making these kinds of shows than others, but that's just my opinion.

What about yours? When you think of animated sitcoms, what do you expect? Do you like raunchier humor or a more sedative type? Do you prefer "animated sitcoms" or comedies that aren't based around a particular family unit? And do you tend to prefer shows like South Park, The Boondocks, or Venture Brothers now that you're older or do you still go back to "safer" cartoons?

[Spark Of Spirit]

I used to think South Park was exactly what "adult humor" was when I first saw Cartman Gets An Anal Probe all those years ago as a kid. Looking back, it's pretty juvenile now, but I still get a kick out of it for being so out there.

My problem with 'commentary' in comedy is that they tend to bring everything screeching to a halt to make their point. South Park now dedicates whole episodes to stuff like this and Family guy derails itself constantly to make fun of Conservatives or Christians in the most poorly written way possible like that "Laura Bush killed a guy" bit from an episode. I have no love (whatsoever) for Laura Bush, but it wasn't funny at all and merely slowed the episode to a crawl so they could make "commentary" on something. Family Guy works best as a comedy fun house, and derailing itself to make stupid messages that destroy the pacing and tone isn't just poor writing, it's poor structure. Why people defend this aspect of the show, I do not understand.

But I think The Simpsons knew how to balance social commentary (which is really the best kind of commentary as it's more universal to all viewers) by interspersing it through rapid fire gags while they tackled everyone and everything. They do it (really, REALLY) badly now, but back in the early seasons, they nailed it hard. As far as I'm concerned no adult show can do it as well as The Simpsons did, because they have no idea how to. They should just stick with what they're good at which is low brow jokes that are too raunchy for kids.

I think adult entertainment for animation only really works when you take advantage of the medium. King Of The Hill and Home Movies worked because they were concepts that could only be realized in animation, complicated character development in real world (or sometimes not) situations that aren't controversial because it's cool or hip, but because they treat you like an adult and expect you to sit down and watch them with a keen eye to notice details you might otherwise miss out on. Futurama is definitely the successor to the Simpsons in this aspect.

That's why I think Adult Swim was a great step forward for mainstream animation at the time. Most of their line up was devoted to bringing adults and older teens sophistication (though sometimes through a warped lens) through abstract cartoony means. Harvey Birdman had a keen sense of social awareness with its courtroom antics, but its fast paced humor, and tittering way of telling jokes both appealed to the child in the viewer and the adult. Latter series lost that appeal and instead focused on gross out idiocy and Warholistic stupidity, but there are shows that got it right.

I actually think that most of those shows, while appealing to adults, can also appeal to younger audiences in the mean time. Like I said before, the best material is the stuff that can hook everyone, not just cater to a specific niche.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Honestly, South Park is the same as its ever been, so I don't really see how people can say that it was perfectly balanced or whatnot in earlier seasons but now its more focused on making fun of current events and celebrities now. Its been like that for a long time, so I don't see why people just seemed to start noticing that now. I think it depends more on whether one actually likes the way the humor is done in a show or not. What I find kind of dumb is that all that people choose to focus on is whether the humor is yet again some commentary on something or not, it doesn't matter if the humor itself is well done, because somehow if its the commentary type of stuff that South Park always does its automatically not funny (and literally no other reasoning is given than that), whereas if its classic social commentary or other similar types of comedy like in The Simpsons' or King of the Hill than its automatically funny. Now, I'm very open so I like both forms of comedy very much, myself, but I'm sick of hearing this BS that just because so-and-so is doing commentary on something its badly done humor. Here's why I think this is BS, personally: With South Park, while I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, I don't keep in touch very much with current events and I'm not that big on celebrities to begin with so to be perfectly honest, half the time I don't even know what SP is referencing, or that they are referencing something to begin with in some cases. Yet I still enjoy the humor and the jokes because its honestly pretty well written with clever comedic timing. Not every episode is a great one, but I really enjoyed more recent episodes like "You Have 0 Friends" and "Insheeption" (which, BTW, I still found hilarious despite the fact that I had still not seen Inception by the time that episode aired).

I've actually come to realize, though, that animated sitcoms, or even comedy in general, is probably the most polarizing genre of entertainment out there. It always either completely sucks or is genuinely good or great. I never see any in-between opinions. People will say South Park is either hilarious social commentary or completely preachy garbage, or that Family Guy is brilliant satire or random a random non-nonsensical waste of 30-minutes each episode, and so on. It must really suck to be in charge of any comedy shows or even films due to the amount of ridicule one gets to their name of a bunch of people don't like it. Just a little observation that I've made, though.

As for me, whether its "adult" or "childish" or great satire or commentary doesn't interest me in the least. Call me simple-minded if you will, and I'll gladly accept that as a complement as opposed to being overly-analytical (even though it would be seen by others as a criticism), but to me, good comedy is good comedy. If it can make me laugh, whether its from some completely juvenile toilet humor or from some cleverly-thought out insightful jokes, its doing something right in my book. Then again, when it comes to comedy I always felt that I was more open-minded to various forms of comedy, but then again I am probably the only person in the world who still doesn't get what's so funny about films like The 40-year old version, so maybe I'm just too dense after all.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I actually didn't mind South Park's social commentary, I just got bored of it. Personally, I think it's a better show when it becomes a gag fest. episodes like Super Fun Time are great because they're just goofy fun, but episodes like the one where Britney Spears walked around without a face for 20 minutes was just not very rewatchable. I think certain shows are better at certain things than others, so when the show begins to focus on aspects I don't think it's particularly strong in I tend to lose interest. South Park, Family Guy (heck, all the MacFarlane shows) and Aqua Teen Hunger Force are all shows I lost interest in at one point or another.

But let's try to not make this thread about one show, there are a lot of different shows with different styles of humor out there.

And who knows, maybe someone actually can make a good excuse for Family Guy around here.

[Avaitor]

As for South Park, I more or less agree with Desen. When it focuses on its characters, the show is worth watching. When Matt and Trey get particularly interested in a topic and focus on that, it becomes more of a mixed bag. That can still work, but it varies to me.

Something like the Jonas Brothers episode worked because its message is well-presented, it's funny if you're familiar with Disney's use of teen stars or not thanks to a couple of clever running gags and the insanity of Mickey, and has a cute subplot with Kenny that works for his character.

Meanwhile, something like the Indiana Jones episode doesn't work as well, since it's lost on viewers who haven't seen the new one, the Cartman and Butters subplot feels out of place, there isn't much to work with besides that, and then there's the fact that its main joke is Lucas and Spielberg raping Indy repeatedly.

As for Family Guy, that is definitely not a show for everyone. At this point, it's basically a sketch comedy show, since the plots have next to no focus, the characters have next to no personality, and its jokes are oddly placed. I think it works sometimes and I usually laugh at least once or twice in an episode, even in the really bad ones, but there are plenty of jokes that just don't work no matter what. A lot of those jokes are shock value gags that probably piss more people off than make them laugh and pop culture references that half the time don't even attempt to make a joke.

I mean, even Darth can't defend the time they recreated Spock's funeral for no fucking reason. Seriously. There's no joke there.

I don't want this to become another South Park vs. Family Guy thread, but that's what I think about both shows a lot of the time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I actually didn't mind South Park's social commentary, I just got bored of it. Personally, I think it's a better show when it becomes a gag fest. episodes like Super Fun Time are great because they're just goofy fun, but episodes like the one where Britney Spears walked around without a face for 20 minutes was just not very rewatchable. I think certain shows are better at certain things than others, so when the show begins to focus on aspects I don't think it's particularly strong in I tend to lose interest. South Park, Family Guy (heck, all the MacFarlane shows) and Aqua Teen Hunger Force are all shows I lost interest in at one point or another.

That's fine and all but that's just the thing: South Park has always been the way you describe it now. I just find it weird that you're acting as though it suddenly decided to only focus on social commentary when, like always, it does that most of the time with the gag-oriented episodes happening every once in a while. Unless of course what you meant was that you're tired of it not having changed its formula over so many years, in which case I could perfectly understand your current distaste for it, but I'm just pointing out that the bottom line is that it basically hasn't changed. Anyways, for some reason I get the feeling that if the show were more gag-oriented like with Super Fun Time, than those types of episodes would become much more common and frequent and than there'd be a bunch of people complaining about its juvenile gag-humor and how it wasn't adult enough for social commentary or some crap like that. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that with a show like SP, I get the feeling that no matter what route it chose to take with its comedy, it would still be fucked either way by being complained about regardless. Anyhow, I'm still at least glad that the show is continuing with relatively good material for the most part, so that's all that really matters to me.

Anyways, so as to not get myself attacked for defending South Park like I usually end up doing, I'll go ahead and say that my favorite animated Sitcom is by far Futurama. And yes, while I still haven't watched a huge about of The Simpsons, and while I respect The Simpsons for inventing that modern style of sitcom humor, I do even prefer Futurama over Groening's previous creation. I just feel that, with the exception of King of the Hill (which admittedly I still need to watch more of), it has had a more consistent quality run than any other animated sitcom out there. In fact, now that I had the recent opportunity to watch some more episodes from the new season that aired recently, I really liked quite a few of the later episodes. I think the early ones kind of sucked a little since they seemed to hell-bent on just being risque and over-the-top, but the 2nd half of the season from what I've seen really started balancing out the humor better and being a lot more like classic Futurama. Of course, I still haven't seen all of the episodes from season 5 (or 6 if you want to count the 4 movies as season 5), so maybe there are some more duds out there. But, overall, from what I saw, I was quite pleased.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I know it's always been there (at least since season 3), but that doesn't mean I'm any less bored of it. It just got boring to me, that's really all there is to it.

Another interesting approach was the show Undergrads, I'm not sure if anyone here has seen it, though. Unfortunately another one season wonder, but it had a lot of potential for more. As far as shows set in college go, I think it was one of the best, it's just too bad shows in that setting never seem to last beyond a season.

But really, I think the very worst attempt at "adult comedy" remains APC. I don't really want to get into the whys here (saving it for the article and I haven't finished it yet), but man did that miss the mark in every single way possible.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I just think South Park lacks flair and favors repetition nowadays (I would've retched if I took a shot every time they said, "It's a Jersey thing," "You are my muse and my flame," or "MintBerry Crunch!" last season), and a lot of the episodes just feel phoned in. Though they do pull off a hit every now and then, the show just hasn't had its edge in quite a while.

Which is more than what I can say for Family Guy, to the point where I just quit watching the show altogether after last Fall's premiere. Sometimes, it gets so entrenched in using shock value without putting a spin on things, that the jokes seem less like gags against race, gender, disasters, rival shows, and other stuff but actual attacks against them (not helped by Sulkin's tweet a couple weeks ago). Where SP is just kind of boring, watching FG feels like being around some tight-assed old guy who bitches about everything.

I mean, if you're gonna do crude, in-your-face, humor, put your fucking teeth to it instead of acting like a bitter old bint about the subject matter.

As for Futurama, it seems to be back on track, though the Christmas special had me pretty worried.

[Angus]

dislike: being on television so long that people expect all adult cartoons have to be like Simpsons, South Park, or Family Guy. I prefer they experiment like back in the Spike and Mike days. You'll see crap, but then you'll see the next Pixar or Nick Park offering.

dislike: too many references, especially to the 1980s. Sorry, I don't want to live in the past anymore. It's, what, over 20 years now. Stop with old Star Wars and the retro crap already.

like: South Park's keeping up with current events and having a strong sync with the public.

like: when it's wrong but it's still funny.

dislike: bad animation. I don't mean crudely drawn characters since that could be a style, but when they do a half-assed job in animating something.

dislike: when they're trying to be too adult

dislike: that I can't watch these shows until the pups go to bed.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just think South Park lacks flair and favors repetition nowadays (I would've retched if I took a shot every time they said, "It's a Jersey thing," "You are my muse and my flame," or "MintBerry Crunch!" last season), and a lot of the episodes just feel phoned in. Though they do pull off a hit every now and then, the show just hasn't had its edge in quite a while.

That whole repetition thing only applies to a few of the more half-assed episodes, though. Its not like every new episode has its own running-gag. Unless of course you were saying South Park's problem is that its been repeating the same general episode formula for way too long, now, in which case I'd agree with you.

At any rate, I'll agree that South Park has been more hit or miss in the last couple of seasons than completely consistent in quality, but I really feel that people highly exaggerate its so-called "miss" ratio. Either that or I just have a stupid sense of humor. Either way, what I can say is that South Park is still a hell of a lot more fun for me to watch than most other animated sitcoms that are currently airing (as in still continuing with new seasons/episodes).