Isn't it strange how Family Guy was made to literally revolve around the craziness and wackiness of its plots and it works and is hilarious and yet whenever The Simpsons goes a bit too far in crazy plots people say "ahhh! The Simpsons sure has gone downhill!" and pine for the old days? Somehow The Simpsons can't pull off what the Family Guy does best, but we shall have to see if they can keep it up if it manages to run on and on.
Wackiness in Family Guy & Simpsons
- Thread starter The_Book_Of_G'Kar
- Start date
The Simpsons at its best (the first thirteen seasons) was far, far more than Family Guy can ever hope to be; it was perhaps the greatest television program ever. Family Guy will never be more than MacFarlane regurgitating various random pieces of pop culture in crude and sometimes amusing results. When the Simpsons now is often uninspired, it pales against what it once was.
Personally I stopped watching new Simpsons eps circa Season 14/15, simply because it stopped being funny anymore IMO, not really because of any wackiness
Actually I really, really love Season 11 & 12 for example, described by Matt Groening in the Simpsons: Beyond Forever guide book as "the wackier than ever years"
Some of the "crazy" stuff in those eps are hilarious, such as the Mel Gibson episode "Beyond Blunderdome". Their alternate ending to the film is genius, and the final shot of the suspiciouslly evil looking dog always has me in stitches
Looking through that book I love pretty much all of the episodes, ones like HomR are among the shows best IMO
"Who wants lottery tickets!"
Actually I really, really love Season 11 & 12 for example, described by Matt Groening in the Simpsons: Beyond Forever guide book as "the wackier than ever years"
Some of the "crazy" stuff in those eps are hilarious, such as the Mel Gibson episode "Beyond Blunderdome". Their alternate ending to the film is genius, and the final shot of the suspiciouslly evil looking dog always has me in stitches
Looking through that book I love pretty much all of the episodes, ones like HomR are among the shows best IMO
"Who wants lottery tickets!"
Im guessing you're not a fan of Family Guy much then? lol
"What Family Guy does best"? If by that you mean mixing crude, deliberately non-pc humor with regurgitated gags that in the end make the show forgettable, then yes The Simpsons will never do what Family Guy "does best".
Although I will be one of the first to admit that The Simpsons has declined somewhat, it will always be far better than the half-hour of 'just-barely-above-reality TV' that FG is.
Y'know...I can see where all the negative feelings come from for alot of folks regarding Family Guy. It makes no sense, crude, pop culture vulture...but...here's the thing...
I laugh hysterically at at least two things every episode...almost without fail.
So, I'm a fan. It's a comedy and I laugh.
I think it's aimed at guys in my age group too, cause there's some references in there that I know only folks of my Generation would get.
-Rabittooth
I laugh hysterically at at least two things every episode...almost without fail.
So, I'm a fan. It's a comedy and I laugh.
I think it's aimed at guys in my age group too, cause there's some references in there that I know only folks of my Generation would get.
-Rabittooth
It's not that I hate Family Guy, I just don't see it as great as everyone makes it out to be. With all of the random pop culture refrences, it just isn't going to be as funny down the line upon repeat viewings. Like the orange afro guy kicking Peter in the nuts, it's just going to be so random and dated, it won't be funny then.
I do think Seth Macfarlane has an awesome speaking voice though.
I do think Seth Macfarlane has an awesome speaking voice though.
In their better, early seasons The Simpsons was one of the best written comedies ever. Family Guy is much more low-brow, and generally don't have a plot, so I doubt it will ever go anywhere near best comedy territory.
Don't get me wrong, I found the show very funny at first, but the schtick got old. Family Guy is like the boisterous relative who is amusing at first but becomes annoying because he won't shut up. There are only so many times you can reuse essentially the exact same gag, and FG passed that point in season 3. Granted, The Simpsons is pretty much crap these days too.
Don't get me wrong, I found the show very funny at first, but the schtick got old. Family Guy is like the boisterous relative who is amusing at first but becomes annoying because he won't shut up. There are only so many times you can reuse essentially the exact same gag, and FG passed that point in season 3. Granted, The Simpsons is pretty much crap these days too.
Y'know...I can see where all the negative feelings come from for alot of folks regarding Family Guy. It makes no sense, crude, pop culture vulture...but...here's the thing...
I laugh hysterically at at least two things every episode...almost without fail.
So, I'm a fan. It's a comedy and I laugh.
I think it's aimed at guys in my age group too, cause there's some references in there that I know only folks of my Generation would get.
-Rabittooth
I completely agree--I know FG is lowbrow, crude and derivative, but yes it makes me laugh hard. The Simpsons rarely achieve that for me these days.
Of course if you take both series in their entirety, The Simpsons is vastly superior to FG, but these days I find FG more gut busting.
Familty-whatnow? I wouldn't know, I'm still listening to The Goon Show, to which they all owe so very, very much. 
I agree Family Guy was never in the league of The Simpsons or South Park. I was a fan of the show during its original run and found it to be very funny. But FG has been awful since its return to Fox. The constant use of unfunny and annoying running gags shows just how little the writers have left. It's a low-brow show and a second-rate South Park.
I only recently caught a few episodes of family guy and found it to be a rather stupid attempt to "up the ante" in terms of creating a vulgar and non-PC version of the Simpsons. Aside from the stupidity of it the thing that bugs me about these sorts of things is that there are certain forms of non-PC humour that these shows will never touch.
Actually, I can't think of a single form of anti-PC humor Family Guy hasn't already done yet. They'll touch it, believe me. Whether most folks will like it or not is another story...but...pretty much name it and I think they'll go there. Accuse them of what you want, but PC cowardice is not in them.
-Rabittooth
I like wacky humour. The problem with the latter day Simpsons and with Family Guy in general isn't because the humour is wacky. It's because it isn't funny. I don't laugh. I remember being in a hotel once and finding myself watching a Simspons episode and a Family Guy episode back to back. The Simpsons episode had a rather silly plot, when one thinks about it - Homer discovers a pencil had been stuck up his nose to make him stupid. I hadn't seen the episode in years. I was laughing constantly throughout the half-hour; there are a dozen of absolutely hilarious moments in that episode intermingled with some good character drama. The Family Guy episode was about teen abstinence catching on at the school and the mom trying to convince the daughter to have sex. As a satirical topic this could have been just as funny or even more funny than the Simpsons episode, but it just wasn't funny. There was none of the subtelty or sly exploration of the issue or anything; just a moral crudely hammered around some lewd gags.
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
It was a crayon, wasn't it? I disliked that one because it countered LISA THE SIMPSON, where it was revealed that Simpson men are all dumb and get dumber as they age. But continuity was never the Simpson's thing...in fact they deliberately reboot...such as the recent Marge and Homer in the 90's, before they got married...Homer invents grunge!
FAMILY GUY was good early one, pre cancellation. When it came back, it had a free ride to be as offensive as possible...and seemed the worse for it. It's still watchable.
Yes, that was the episode, and yes, continuity is hardly a strong point of the series. Watch the first season and you'll see all kinds of details that later got scrapped or rearranged (Smithers being black, for example).
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