- Captain Richards
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- Fabled Member
'Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.'
These three television shows are generally regarded as the animated juggernauts of their area, and while this has probably been highly overdone, I would like to ask, out of the three, which do you think is the best and worst? Why and why not? Explain.
I personally think that out of the three, The Simpsons was the very best--during its prime, which was from about season 1 to 7. But after that, it went highly downhill, but ultimately, still held its own weight. The Simpsons is good because--unlike the other two shows--it has character development, and the plots are usually well written and developed in a way comparable to any other sitcom. It makes good use of everyday jokes in clever ways, and can at times be satirical about something. On the downside, you won't really get excessively inappropriate humour or satire in the show--since it is aimed at a family audience, but ultimately you will still get a good chuckle.
Southpark is also amazing. While its animation quality is laughably simple, and it has poor plot development, it probably has the greatest satire and jokes out of all three. The writers make up for their lack of plot and animation with extremely clever satirical jokes on pop-culture, present events and concepts in a way that I am convinced is unmatched by the other two shows. What I like about Southpark is that it is not biased by any idealogy or viewpoint, but rather teases every group, viewpoint and idealogy. All aspects of the political sphere are teased, all religions and even irreligion are teased, everything you could think of is teased. Southpark is basically the middle-finger to the entire world.
I believe that Family Guy is probably the very worst out of the trio. Pure garbage, and it is even shameful for it to be mentioned in the same league as The Simpsons and Southpark. Family Guy has HORRIBLE plot development--making use of excessive filler when the writers cannot think of something else to insert--like that time they freaking had a 10 minute fight scene between Peter Griffin and an oversized anthropomorphic chicken for no reason other than to pass up the time to fill in the 30 minute time slot, whereas The Simpsons and Southpark can develop their plots to fill the entire time slot without any filler most of the time. Likewise, Family Guy also has no character development whatsoever--take Meg for example. The jokes in Family Guy are also very immature, cheap and easy. The show makes excessive use of cheap shock value humour by seeing how far they could get away with things, and by odd non-sequitor flashbacks about random topics that don't really pertain to the plot at all, but are used as filler.
Ultimately, it seems as if the jokes were written by a 12 year old who just discovered what sex is. They are random, blunt, cheap and boring. The whole show is utter garbage. Yet, this is ACTUALLY--in a very strange, ironic way--Family Guy's strongpoint. The show is garbage and the writers know that it is garbage; they intend for it to be garbage. The show sort of functions as a parody--by almost making fun of itself in a way, by the humour value being based upon the stupidity, cheapness and non-sequitor humour of the show. I like that. Likewise, the segments where Stewie and Brian are together doing something are probably the show's best moments in regards to plot development and entertainment. But other than that, I don't really see what it offers.
My final complaint with Family Guy is that it is blatantly biased and influenced by Seth MacFarlane's political and religious views. He is constantly making fun of and/or teasing anyone and/or any group that disagrees with him or has a different view than him. I find this kind of cheap. Brian especially has become Seth's personal political platform (alliteration right there). There is nothing wrong with making fun of these people and groups, but when you ONLY make fun of them because of your own viewpoints, it kind of becomes old, and a cheap excuse for expressing your own views and biasing the show. Southpark is superior in my opinion because they make fun of ALL groups and viewpoints equally--regardless of what the writers believe. You could see an episode making fun of religious fundamentalism, and then see another episode making fun of Richard Dawkins and irreligion. The show is diverse and makes fun of everything--and in a more satirical, clever way as well, whereas Family Guy just makes fun of something in a very blunt, cheap way.
In the end, I would rate Southpark higher than all of them, because even though The Simpsons in its prime was better than all three, its prime is long gone and the show has gone downhill, whereas Southpark has pretty much remained consistent in its quality overall and thus deserves to be ranked higher in my opinion.