South Park Zombies Agree: "Family Guy Retroactively Unfunny"

by J.R. Antrim | 2006-05-22

South Park Zombies Hate Family Guy -- Proof! I love the Internet Movie Database. I don't even link to the place, but I could easily spend a million years logged in there, arguing about titular theme songs and reminiscing about old favorites. It's a good place for asking questions like, "Does anyone know name of the song at the end of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark?"

IMDB is also a good place to ask insanely stupid questions, like this guy:

"What happened to Family Guy?

Up until about halfway through Season 4, I loved Family Guy. But then suddenly it was bad, not just the new episodes, but the old ones too. Like I really don't know what happened, but I know for a fact that I'm not the only one that this has happened to.

I still like a lot of the old episodes, but South Park's formula really did point out the "badness" of Family Guy.

Am I alone, or has the torch dimmed for some of you other Family Guy fans?"

- Actual post on IMDB [Emphasis added].

Let me get this straight. He used to like Family Guy. Then South Park pointed out that their humor was random. And, suddenly, "it was bad". That about cover it?

Sheesh. If you need South Park to point out that a lot of Family Guy's humor is made up of random pop culture references, then have I got a shocker for you:

According to Dot & the Kangaroo, most of South Park's plots are thinly veiled allegories. In other words, when Al Gore was talking about Manbearpig, he wasn't really talking about Manbearpig. He was talking about Global Warming. And when The Super Adventure Club brainwashed Chef? That was really about Scientology. The one where David Blane brainwashes people into being "Blaintologists"? Scientology. The one where they take on Scientology?

Er... okay, once in a while, the South Park guys just come out and say what their episode is really about. And every now and then, Family Guy makes a joke that isn't random.

You get the point.

Family Guy's random-humor-unrelated-to-plotlines (jeez I wish there was an easier way to say that) non sequiturs are every bit as obvious as South Park's satire. They're equally formulaic. (And for the record, I love South Park and Family Guy. If a gun was placed to my head and I was forced to pick one to be canceled, I wouldn't know what to do. Probably just cry and wet myself.)

The creators of South Park aren't telling us anything we didn't already know. Unless, like the fellow who started this damn thread in the first place, you watched a TV show for four seasons and somehow manage to absorb nothing about it.

If, after the fifth season of American Idol, you jump up and yell, "Hey! That Simon guy is mean!", you have problems. You're probably just not aware of them. Ditto for South Park's parody plots. Ditto for Family Guy's random humor. This isn't about which show is better. This is about people born without the gift of perception.

Email J.R. Antrim

More stuff by J.R. Antrim.