Futurama–on Cartoon Network, 10pm central time, SMTWThr
BE THERE! OR BITE MY SHINEY METAL @SS!
The Simpsons is still the high water mark.
Futurama started quite strong, but when Fox started showing episodes every 3 months it seems the writers gave up too. Bender became a strident one trick pony, and the clever plots became much more predictable. In fact there were many “later” episodes that I did not even laugh at all.
King of the Hill? ::shudders:: talk about craptastic. How do you know if any episode is going to suck? One word-- Peggy. :smack: Although every season they seem to have a good episode or two (usually based around Bill).
Family Guy was really good as well, but was much more adult in humor so it is not really fair to compare it to the others.
I love being able to mention that I have all 36 episodes on tape.
::shakes booty:: SPOON!
As for the OP, Simpsons at its best was better than Futurama, but not all that much. Futurama is pretty darn good. I never really dug Family Guy; it was too, I dunno, overt. King of the Hill is the kind of show I can watch with my mom – it’s funny, but doesn’t freak her out.
Me too! I wish they would bring it back, or that someone would do an animated Tick movie.
I’ve been loving watching Futurama every night on Cartoon Network, especially since Home Movies is on afterwards. If you’re an animation fan and you haven’t seen Home Movies, seek it out! It’s the real up and comer.
Yes, because I went to high school with them.
For further proof, when NASCAR season starts, listen to a Dale Earnhardt Jr. interview. He’s been described as a live-action Boomhauer.
I think “King of the Hill” has to be animated to get away with much of its humor. If you had a live action Joseph Gribble, you wouldn’t find the humor in the situation about his ture believeable. You would likely find it offensive.
Also the Laotian family would be tarred and feathered by activist groups if they were live action.
Animation immediately cues in the viewer that they are watching a fantasy and the more outrageous parts can be dismissed that way.
It’s not much different from Apu in “The Simpsons”. He would not be acceptable to viewers in live action.
I agree about Family Guy, it was brilliant. I always thought a Sunday night lineup of Futurama, KOTH, Simpsons and Family Guy would be dynomite, sadly, Fox never gave FG a fair shot.
KOTH is OK, although I have to say “The Amazing Jesus” scene in church had me howling.
A few months ago I kept telling my brother “The Simpsons is my all-time favorite show but Futurama is killing it right now” and he just wouldn’t accept me telling him that Futurama is in the same ballpark as (let alone better than) The Simpsons. Sadly, the last few new episodes of Futurama have been pretty weak so it’s getting harder for me to make the argument.
Fox buried Futurama in a sucko time-slot, so it has never picked up the audience base it deserves.
As far at being better than the Simpsons, that’s all matter of opinion.
I like both and wish continued success.
The Simpsons still has a good edge to it, as evidenced by the show two weeks ago about Homer hiring a PI to investigate Lisa.
The Futurama comic books are wonderful, too.
But, King of the Hill??!! I know NO ONE in my personal life who watches that show. Myself, I cannot stand rednecks nor their humor. And I agree with the observation about the lack of need for it to be animated. Nothing inventive is done, so why animate?
For a long time now Futurama has been funnier than The Simpsons. I can never seem to find anyone else who actually watches it though, which is a shame, because it’s quite good. I’ve watched King of the Hill off and on for a couple years and then finally realized something that’s been nagging at me for the whole time: I hate that fucking show. There isn’t a single character on there that doesn’t make me so angry and annoyed that I have to leave the room or change the channel.
The Family Guy and The Tick were both absolute classics. God, I would do anything to see an episode of The Tick right now. Are they not available anywhere?!
King of the Hill rulez, Simpsons still owns, Futurama is funny (when i can find it). They are all better than 99% of the crap spewing forth from the loins of the 6 headed whore of networkalon.
Good morning Miami? Get bent, Miami!
:smack:
Please reassure this poor little horrified Canadian that King of the Hill is not an accurate depiction of American Life in any meaningful way. My friends and I sit down to watch it not to laugh, because that rarely happens, but to enjoy the pleasure of gasping aloud and crying “OH MY GOD.”
Is it a cultural difference? Are we too ignorant to get the humour or are Americans just not as funny as Canadians?
bee
Think of King of the Hill’s depiction of rednecks in a similar vein as Monty Python’s depiction of Scotsmen.
Oh, and Futurama kicks ass. 
Uh, many of us who live in the South, tend to look at King of the Hill as a documentary. I used to work with a guy who was exactly like Cotton (except that he had no war stories about getting his knees blown off, but he told similar tales about the trucking industry).
I love all of these shows (except Family Guy, which was crap on a crap cracker).
And it is goldang scary how realistic King of the Hill is sometimes, I tell you what.
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It really depends where you live. I’ve known a few people that would belong on that show here in Texas (but by no means is everyone like that). In that sense it’s really a parody of the Southern parochial yahoo, yet at the same time they try not to make it too obvious. I can see how a Canadian wouldn’t get it.
It’s funny… sometimes. But not as funny as Futurama or the Simpsons.
Since the Simpsons has been running so much longer than Futurama it really isn’t fair to make comparisons. The Simpsons suck now, Futurama is hopefully getting its second wind.
Family Guy did have some great lines in it, but it wasn’t, as a whole, original. Let’s see:
Father: Fat idiotic oaf
Mother: Stay at home mom who is waaay to good for Father
Son: Underacheiving dolt
Daughter: Nerdy bookish type
and Baby.
Take away Stewie’s megalomania (which was actually very funny) and it sounds way too familiar? Great writing. Unoriginal concept. They should get the “Unhappily Ever After” award for lack of concept originality.
I think Futurama is currently better than the Simpsons because Futurama is less constricted. You’d never get a hypnotoad in Springfield. You can have countless storylines in a futuristic setting that spans the known and unknown universe. There’s much more potenital for humor. How many times can Homer get a new job?
Plus if you’re overeduacted, there’s a lot good additional humor in there. Moreso than even the Simpsons. (cf St. Pauli Exclusion Principle Girl Beer)
Throw in some jaw-dropping computer-assisted animation a la Zim, and you get a damn fine show.
I think most people never allowed themselves to get into it because they were essentially expecting Futuristic Homer. It’s got a distinctive humor to it, and most Simpsons die-hards didn’t expect that.
Alphagene One, taking away Stewie’s megalomania would hurt the show, I agree. Then again, taking away Homer would hurt that show too, which is to say, if things were different, they would not be the same. Two, you forgot the talking dog, who had some of the best lines. Maybe you are right though, that between Simpsons, and TFG, there wasn’t enough room in the line-up for another family/cartoon thing. Good point that.
Dr. Rieux Them’s fightin’ words. Crap on a cracker indeed.
First off, everyone here knows that Futurama has been cancelled, right?
And second off, I cannot believe the praise I’m hearing for The Family Guy. That show was terrible. It was like a bunch of high school A/V geeks got together and said let’s write a Simpsons show. It had absolutely no style, structure or heart. It was just a bunch of lame jokes set to some animation. It had ‘wunza’ characters (ones a this, ones a that) that didn’t even attempt to develop any personality. They were all just props for the (lame) jokes.
And something that was tellingly bad about the writing was they way that literally half the jokes were told in flashback. IOW they began with someone saying “remember the time you…” instead of actually integrating it into the story. It was like writing bad exposition. I know The Simpsons does this too, but not every other freakin’ line!
I remember seeing the original Seth McFarland cartoon FG was based on on Cartoon Network and thinking the same thing.
Both Duckman and The Critic, two other lame Simpsons rip-offs, were better than this show. And some of you are calling it brilliant?! Oh the humanity! 
<Adds Hail Ants to list of those who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes…>