The Simpsons - Warrin' Priests (Parts I & II)

[Jumblegraws]

For some reason, on The Comedy Show Called The Simpsons, there's an earnest, 40 minute story written by Pete Holmes about a sincere and well-meaning pastor who comes to town and just... fucking... delivers a sermon about faith and outreach Christianity and who is also voiced by the man Pete Holmes who is... I guess some kind of fucking evangelical weirdo?

I had to look him, apparently he used to work the Christian Comedy circuit, which I didn't know was a thing but at the same time how could it not be? He lists one of his influences as Dane Cook, so I thought he must be on the young end of the millennial generation, but he's actually eight years my senior. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
ETA: Christ, he cites Sinbad and Gallagher as influences too. I'm surprised Carlos Mencia didn't make the list.

[dissolute ocelot]

I don't think Family Guy's reputation ever quite got past the Cartoon Wars attack from South Park. It was still popular for a number of years, but comedy nerds etc. by and large no longer liked it. Much as The Simpsons cruelly slayed Dinosaurs before it.

Family Guy has always been a guilty pleasure at best. It's subject to a lot of on-point attacks, such as South Park's attacks on the lazy cutaway gags (which are usually the funniest part), but unlike the Simpsons it's very willing to acknowledge it's shit. So people hating on Brian as unfeasibly tedious was acknowledged by the show briefly killing him, there's intentional audience baiting with jokes dragged out beyond all measure, it references the cutaways, etc. Simpsons still believes it is a cultural touchstone and masterpiece, which makes it far easier to hate.

Modern Simpsons in my perspective is a weird show, because the animation can be wonderful, the songs were great till they sacked Alf Clausen, and there is a lot of invention - some of the auteurist couch gags are great, and they have done a lot of different things in terms of how they tell stories, even if a lot have not been funny and many have kind of fallen apart before the end. But it's often lazily written and very short on both jokes and emotion (look, a celeb!). Warrin' Priests probably attracted praise because it did try to do something other than lowest common denominator humor but IMO it didn't do anything I want to watch; it was more suited to Felt Up By An Angel or something. A show like Modern Family can get by with a couple of laughs an episode because it's as much soap as sitcom, but The Simpsons is a joke machine and could and should be very fucking funny.

[SavageHedgehog]

I'm in the cliched camp of having really enjoyed Family Guy in its original run, but tiring of it quickly when it returned (though I stumble upon the odd good or interesting episode now and then). These days I'm not sure if that's as much down to a drop in quality (although it did get significantly nastier and more pandering in the 4th/5th season) so much as it wasn't a show that was built to last for long.

I'm also in the cliched camp of preferring American Dad (although I haven't seen the last 2-3 years) because the characters and plots are often funny even if there are some weak jokes. Most of the FG characters who aren't Peter, Brian or Stewie are either dead weight, one note or actively unpleasant.

I feel like most recent Simpsons I've seen haven't had many celebrity guests as themselves (probably because of the backlash to the Lady Gaga episode) and Homer's jerkassness has been toned down by 10% or so. I could be forgetting a lot though, because honestly most recent Simpsons, good or bad, is pretty forgettable, which couldn't be said even about the later Mike Scully years, which in many ways I feel are still the nadir.

[frajer]

I'm also in the cliched camp of preferring American Dad (although I haven't seen the last 2-3 years) because the characters and plots are often funny even if there are some weak jokes. Most of the FG characters who aren't Peter, Brian or Stewie are either dead weight, one note or actively unpleasant.

Oh yeah I'd agree American Dad is far superior. Glad to hear it's a popular enough opinion to be a cliche. Roger is a bit played out but Stan and Francine are solid gold. As you say, there's places the characters in American Dad can still go to create interesting plots and dynamics.

[Old Nehamkin]

From my scattered viewings of Family Guy through the years, I feel like it went through a particularly bad phase from some point in the late '00s through to the mid '10s where I always seemed to get a really unpleasant, ugly vibe from it whenever I caught an episode. Among other things I remember there being a real abundance of barely-ironic racism and misogyny, lots of witless try-hard edginess and an obsession with audience-baiting meta jokes where they would pause the episode to play a full-length Conway Twitty performance or whatever. When I catch the more recent ones on ITV2 it does seem to have mellowed out a bit and dropped some of those more obnoxious elements, and I usually find it good for a few laughs, but I do still instinctively associate the whole brand with some of the worst and most annoying trends in animated comedy and comedy more generally from the period of its heyday.

[SavageHedgehog]

In retrospect was the bit where Quagmire chewed out Brian was a really weird move, basically telling the conservative side of their fan base that they were right, unless I'm misreading it. Not something they'd do a few years later I imagine.

[JaDanketies]

Brian the Dog makes Richard Dawkins seem like a cool atheist with varied interests and a nuanced approach to issues.

Ricky Gervais is a real-life Brian the Dog.

[Blumf]

In retrospect was the bit where Quagmire chewed out Brian was a really weird move, basically telling the conservative side of their fan base that they were right, unless I'm misreading it. Not something they'd do a few years later I imagine.

I think you are misreading it. Modern Brian is supposed to be hypocritical liberal (i.e. not really left-wing) douchebag. He pontificates about progressive causes but is both too lazy and too centrist to really care, only really being interested in women and booze/weed.

Plenty of times through the show's run when his attitude is call out, that Quigmire incident is just one of the more direct examples.

Easy mistake to make as he did start out as the voice of reason, before everything when full on nihilistic.

[idunnosomename]

I completely agree with with big chinned sex addict about the talking cartoon dog

[SavageHedgehog]

I think you are misreading it. Modern Brian is supposed to be hypocritical liberal (i.e. not really left-wing) douchebag. He pontificates about progressive causes but is both too lazy and too centrist to really care, only really being interested in women and booze/weed.

Plenty of times through the show's run when his attitude is call out, that Quigmire incident is just one of the more direct examples.

Easy mistake to make as he did start out as the voice of reason, before everything when full on nihilistic.

OK, thanks. I wasn't watching it regularly at this point and it seemed to be celebrated by people who would post "I love this show but it's too liberal\I hate Bryan because he's too liberal", so it almost seemed to me like a Ted Cruz thinking Lisa is the villain in The Simpsons kind of deal.

[The Mollusk]

Yes I saw most of the episodes of the most recent season and enjoyed many of them. There were a couple of turkeys, and nothing to touch the golden era, but still worth watching. I really don't get the hate, and the most vitriolic hatred seems to come from people who admit they haven't watched an episode in years. I had this exact discussion about a year ago on this board. I said the new season is worth a new look and everyone just went no, we're not going to do that and just continued the hate-fest. Bizarre.

Imagine spending 20+ years of your life eating bananas on the regs, they're your favourite food. You revisit bananas all the time because fuck me bananas are just always great and dependable, they're an instant easy snack and they give you energy and they taste lovely, and then someone comes up to you one day and says "Have you tried this new banana? It's a different shape to the classic banana which makes it harder to peel, and the colour's a bit dark so it looks like it's gone off, and the texture's pretty weird. Oh, and it tastes different. About 1 in 50 of them taste pretty great but the vast majority of them are fucking rank. You should eat a load of them and see what you think." Would you do it? Would you fuck.

[Andy147]

Family Guy has always been a guilty pleasure at best. It's subject to a lot of on-point attacks, such as South Park's attacks on the lazy cutaway gags (which are usually the funniest part), but unlike the Simpsons it's very willing to acknowledge it's shit. So people hating on Brian as unfeasibly tedious was acknowledged by the show briefly killing him, there's intentional audience baiting with jokes dragged out beyond all measure, it references the cutaways, etc. Simpsons still believes it is a cultural touchstone and masterpiece, which makes it far easier to hate.

The Simpsons' creators for quite a while seemed to have a doublethink attitude:
- on the one hand, we're really proud of making The Simpsons, it's one of the greatest shows ever, we love how people really relate to it and its beloved characters etc, etc;
- on the other hand, why are these nerds on the Internet criticising it? It's just a comedy show! So what if Homer's become really unpleasant and unrealistic - what kind of idiot would get worked up over a cartoon?

[Thursday]

It's because there's been about 17 different separate occasions over time where I've heard someone I usually trust say "Oh this new episode was pretty good actually" or "this last season has been alright" and when I check, it turns out to be dogshit and makes me question that person's judgement, so now I don't bother doing it anymore. I just want it to die so we can be free of it.

[Menu]

Imagine spending 20+ years of your life eating bananas on the regs, they're your favourite food. You revisit bananas all the time because fuck me bananas are just always great and dependable, they're an instant easy snack and they give you energy and they taste lovely, and then someone comes up to you one day and says "Have you tried this new banana? It's a different shape to the classic banana which makes it harder to peel, and the colour's a bit dark so it looks like it's gone off, and the texture's pretty weird. Oh, and it tastes different. About 1 in 50 of them taste pretty great but the vast majority of them are fucking rank. You should eat a load of them and see what you think." Would you do it? Would you fuck.

I'd try the fucking banana, if that person was going to make such a fuss about it. And I'd make my own mind up about it. And then whenever I was asked to comment on this new banana I could speak from a position of authority. Your position is that you won't even try the banana because you have a weird (sexual) fetish for a banana you had when you were a child. And it's not 1 in 50 episodes that are great. Roughly, I would say, probably 4 or 5 a season are poor, the others are a good(sometimes great) 20 mins of comedy. That's probably at least as good as any other comedy at the moment.

[JaDanketies]

Is it even fair to compare modern Simpsons to classic Simpsons anyway? It's widely known that classic Simpsons is some of the finest animated comedy ever. Can you imagine if we did it for anything other than The Simpsons?

"Did you catch the latest episode of Rick and Morty?"

"Oh, well, it's hardly classic Simpsons, is it?"

[rue the polywhirl]

It's seems pretty fair to compare newer episodes of things to classic Simpsons and in some cases they do bear comparison - the king jellybean and morty scene in rik and morty vs the homer falling down the canyon.

[Menu]

Is it even fair to compare modern Simpsons to classic Simpsons anyway? It's widely known that classic Simpsons is some of the finest animated comedy ever. Can you imagine if we did it for anything other than The Simpsons?

"Did you catch the latest episode of Rick and Morty?"

"Oh, well, it's hardly classic Simpsons, is it?"

Ha!

[The Mollusk]

I'd try the fucking banana, if that person was going to make such a fuss about it. And I'd make my own mind up about it. And then whenever I was asked to comment on this new banana I could speak from a position of authority. Your position is that you won't even try the banana because you have a weird (sexual) fetish for a banana you had when you were a child. And it's not 1 in 50 episodes that are great. Roughly, I would say, probably 4 or 5 a season are poor, the others are a good(sometimes great) 20 mins of comedy. That's probably at least as good as any other comedy at the moment.

From earnest experience of trying to enjoy various so-called decent bananas from the last two decades of The Bananas, my own personal opinion differs greatly to yours. Those bananas aren't good, and I don't find it a valuable use of my time to keep eating them just because someone else thinks they taste better than I do.

[MojoJojo]

In his autobiography, David Mitchell talks about how sitcom are easier than sketch comedy, because once people are familiar with the characters they will forgive them a lot, whereas with a sketch show you're only ever as good as your last sketch. I think you can see this in long running sitcoms like Friends, where the later seasons have much poorer writing but the remained popular.

I can sort of accept that modern Simpson is often technically OK-to-good, but the characters have all become weirdly distorted versions of the old Simpsons that makes it impossible to enjoy.

[Replies From View]

I don't understand the human-dog interface in Family Guy.  I don't know if it is meant to be a human in permanent costume, a metaphor for a family member with a victim complex thinking he is treated like a dog, or what.  No idea and to be honest never really gave it the time it might deserve because the art and animation is so fucking ugly.  The only times I've sat through episodes it was because the majority of people in the room wanted it on, and I was happy to give it a go, but it was no good - the humour was a kind of Peter Kay thing of remembering film references.  And I've never felt the impulse to go further with it than that - it had nothing in it at all to draw me in.

[Thursday]

He's a taking dog, hope that helps.

[madhair60]

Family Guy is just funny. It's one of the only telly shows that's actually funny.

[Replies From View]

Ok so there's a talking dog, literally a talking dog, I can go with that.  It's a cartoon world after all.

It's funny if you find it funny, that's fair.

I think there's a difference in how people experience the visual style of the show and how easily they can just enjoy it.  Whenever I've sat with people who love Family Guy, and they've all been enjoying it on whatever level, I'm mostly trying with all my might to ignore how everyone's faces are ballooning out to the side for no discernible reason.  And how, when the characters turn to face the other way, their ballooning-out cheek flips to the other side.  I'm not even joking about this - on a sensory level I am actually overwhelmed by the faces in Family Guy, and I spend most of the episodes trying to process and comprehend these faces before even taking character and humour into account.  It's not a conscious thing I'm doing, it's just there blocking what everyone else seems to get out of the show.  And it's what has stopped me going back to give it enough goes to enjoy it in the ways you do.

[Blumf]

Ok so there's a talking dog, literally a talking dog, I can go with that.  It's a cartoon world after all.

If it helps, canonically there is a parallel world where dogs are humans (and humans are dogs), so Brian may have unwittingly originated from there.

[Petey Pate]

I think there's a difference in how people experience the visual style of the show and how easily they can just enjoy it.  Whenever I've sat with people who love Family Guy, and they've all been enjoying it on whatever level, I'm mostly trying with all my might to ignore how everyone's faces are ballooning out to the side for no discernible reason.  And how, when the characters turn to face the other way, their ballooning-out cheek flips to the other side.  I'm not even joking about this - on a sensory level I am actually overwhelmed by the faces in Family Guy, and I spend most of the episodes trying to process and comprehend these faces before even taking character and humour into account.  It's not a conscious thing I'm doing, it's just there blocking what everyone else seems to get out of the show.  And it's what has stopped me going back to give it enough goes to enjoy it in the ways you do.

For your sake, I hope you don't ever watch the show Big Mouth. It makes Family Guy look like Fantasia.

[Mister Six]

Big mouth is fairly ugly, but the character designs still shit all over Family Guy's, in which everything is dreadful and static except for the eyes (which are just circles that sometimes have a line across them for eyelids) and mouths. A real achievement in ugly, impractical and shut character design.

[Blumf]

Brickleberry and Bordertown





Unremittingly ugly and unfunny.

MacFarlane Exec. Produced Bordertown, possibly to deflect criticism of FG.

[JaDanketies]

I saw some people saying they couldn't enjoy Mr Pickles because of how profoundly ugly it was. I never noticed really. although I do notice that Rick and Morty or Adventure Time often have beautiful animation.

[madhair60]

Bordertown was pretty funny, I still remember several gags from it. Brickleberry was pretty funny too at times

[ProvanFan]

Baanaaanaaaaas