Futurama

[Foggle]

South Park is pretty hit or miss on the topical stuff. Sometimes they're right on the money, and it's hilarious. Other times, not so much. Futurama and Family Guy are horrible at topical humor, though, IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The only show that does topical events well is Boondocks, and only because they use the ones so outlandish they may as well be made-up. While South Park, Simpsons, Family Guy, and Futurama take the "grab current event and make thinly-veiled jabs at it for twenty minutes" route.

Boondocks is overrated. I like the show on the whole, but I fail to see how it does topical events that well. I just feel like people love to say that for whatever they feel is the least mainstream series of the time relative to other shows in the same genre.

Also, my main problem with the show is its characters. Riley is an annoying kid (I know he's written the way he is on purpose, but he contributes no humor to the show in my eyes), and Hughey is an unlikable douche know-it-all (or so he thinks). The characters used to entertain me but now I see them as just plain unpleasant.

I like South Park. Its hit or miss, and some of its current event episodes are stale, but it never comes off like its trying too hard to force its viewpoints down your throat, either, so it never pisses me off when there's a badly done topical events episode. Also, I think there are quite a bit more well-done South Park episodes from the past couple of seasons than most people these days give the series credit for. I mean, for a show that has each episode made in only a week, I still find it more entertaining than most animated comedy shows of the same type that I know of, personally.

[Avaitor]

Well South Park I forgive because yeah, they hit a lot of things right on the money and is often funny in its results. I think it dates itself way too quickly though, but even that's okay, since it has become such a cultural touchstone at this point that people can easily go back to early episodes and remember how much of a big deal we put into such nonsensical bullshit like Britney Spears' breakdown and the effects of Jersey Shore.

SP also gets away with this since it's always been topical. Futurama has had plenty of references to modern culture since its beginning, but it never went out of its way to mock our society and stuck to building their society back then. The newer episodes are going to suffer in the long run for this and feel awkward in comparison.

No one's going to look back at the Election 3012 episode and consider it a classic along with "Godfellas" or "Hell is Other Robots".

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, like anybody except crazy people give a damn about a joke on the Birther movement.

[Avaitor]

And as for the Boondocks, I prefer the less topical episodes myself, but I mean, it has a documentary episode with Werner Herzog and MLK coming to life to call BET the worst thing he's ever seen.

It's hard to knock stuff like that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I agree with Avaitor' sentiment. With a show like South Park, it has had topical humor and was heavy on social commentary since early on. A show like Futurama is a different case entirely, though. Its a show that was great because of having well-written humor that's easy for most people to understand. It may have occasionally had a little social commentary or possibly a jab at some current event, but it never based entire episodes on any such thing. While I do still enjoy the current seasons for the most part, I feel like what holds them back is how the writers seem to feel the need to be like every other "current" animated comedy show out there in terms of pandering to the "current events" type of crowd. It doesn't even feel like the writers like that type of humor, themselves. It just feels like they are doing it because they think they have to in order to boost their ratings (it'd certainly be a sad thing if that is in fact the truth).

[Foggle]

Well South Park I forgive because yeah, they hit a lot of things right on the money and is often funny in its results. I think it dates itself way too quickly though, but even that's okay, since it has become such a cultural touchstone at this point that people can easily go back to early episodes and remember how much of a big deal we put into such nonsensical bullshit like Britney Spears' breakdown and the effects of Jersey Shore.

Well, the thing I like about South Park is that the really good episodes either aren't about current events or are still funny even without knowledge of them. Like one of my favorite episodes of SP, last season's 1%. The OWS jokes weren't very funny to begin with, but the rest will remain hilarious even 50 years from now IMO.

[Avaitor]

To me it seems like Comedy Central imposes on the Futurama writers to add more cutting edge humor to it, so they have an alternative to South Park during the summer. Almost like Futurama couldn't hold its own if it stuck to the kind of humor and storytelling it excelled with in the original run.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

And as for the Boondocks, I prefer the less topical episodes myself, but I mean, it has a documentary episode with Werner Herzog and MLK coming to life to call BET the worst thing he's ever seen.

I did really like the MLK episode, myself, but that wasn't really a "current events" episode. It was more of a general social commentary episode, and social commentary and topical current events certainly aren't one in the same.

As for South Park, I tend to agree with how Doug Walker put it when he listed it was one of his favorite shows: The humor is so well done in a lot of the classic episodes that people end up sometimes remembering the current event that it was parodying because of how good the parody was.

Also, I know I'm alone on this one, but I don't feel that the show dates itself just because it often parodies current events. I can still go back to a lot of episodes and still find them funny because they still have witty humor that is fun to enjoy even if you don't remember what the hell it was making fun of. The humor is done in such a way that the world of South Park is filled with bizarre people and events, so it just feels like part of the shows nature more than it does the show parodying the real world (at least to me).

[Spark Of Spirit]

I dunno, I'm pretty burnt out on topical humor as a whole, but I still think SP's best episodes are the ones where the kids are just being kids.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Topical humor can be done right though, as can be seen by Colbert. But then, nobody goes back and watches old TCR episodes.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I dunno, I'm pretty burnt out on topical humor as a whole, but I still think SP's best episodes are the ones where the kids are just being kids.

Even those episodes have some form of social commentary in them, though, for the most part.

Also, while I do love those episodes myself, they are special for a reason, which is that they aren't done too often. If the entire show was like that then it'd eventually get stale before too long and none of those particular episodes would really stand out anymore.

As for me, I'm not really burnt out on any specific type of humor, myself. I just like well-done humor. If it can make me laugh, then its good, though to be fair humor is a very subjective thing, no matter what kind it is.

[Dr. Insomniac]

You know how when The Simpsons was starting to suck, they were making non-THOH three-part anthologies based on the family being something (folk tales, Bible characters, etc.)? This Futurama episode feels exactly like that.

[Avaitor]

Don't forget the Christmas episode from the first CC season.

[Peanutbutter]

I still like Futurama. Haven't caught up completely to the current season, but that's because I can't seem to remember in time that it's on Wednesdays instead of Thursdays. From what I've seen, it's been funny but there hasn't been anything spectacular yet. I did think last season had some good gems in it though.