Only the first dozen or so episodes of the Brak Show are good; it went WAY downhill after that. However, those episodes are very, very good, especially the time machine episode and the goldfish episode. Though most of them still can’t compete with the average episode of ATHF.
The Brak Show makes me laugh because Brak has the joy and unbridled optimism of a small child. He’s completely unaware of anything negative, so he inevitably gets the comeuppance on Zorak and Thundercles.
ATHF, as has been noted, derives its humor from the interaction of the characters. Meatwad is also childlike, albeit more than a little passive-aggressive; Master Shake is a manipulative jackass who is often his own victim; and Frylock is the caretaker who takes no crap from either of them.
I find Family Guy to be hysterically funny, although exactly why defies analysis. Either you get that each episode is just a stream of rapid-fire jokes that really neglects any idea of plot or you don’t. The acid test to determine if FG is your cup of oolong is to watch the scene with Peter fighting the giant chicken. The whole point of that bit is not the aburdity of the joke, but that it goes on for 2 minutes. The joke continues way past the point where we’ve been trained to expect a joke to end, and that sort of meta-humor is what makes it funny. IMO, YMMV, and all that.
The Brak show is teh suXXors. ATHF and Sealab are good for a chuckle every now and again. But Harvey Birdman, now that’s comedy. The Jetsons episode almost made me pee my pants.
I’m of the opinion that if you really, truly “get” The Simpsons, then you’ll see Family Guy as nothing but a formulaic ripoff. Funny at times, always “watchable” if nothing else good is on, but nowhere near “original”.
RE: ATHF: I like other Adult Swim shows. I love Sealab 2021, I used to like Space Ghost (do they still show that? Embarassingly, I’m not up late enough to catch AS anymore), but I just cannot get into ATHF. It’s not that I hate it. I really don’t have an opinion on it, other than I can’t force it to hold my attention no matter how hard I try. I think I’ve started watching it at least 20 times, but I’ve never finished an episode.
HI MY NAME IS BRAAAAAAK!
Carl, from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, lives on my block. I’m not kidding. This guy is a combination between Ron Jeremy and a perogie.
The first five or six episodes of ATHF sucked mightily while at the same time the first five or six episodes of Sealab rocked greatly. And then at that point the writers had brain transplants and ATHF started getting funnier and funnier while Sealab petered out. The Mooninites made the show for me…
The Brak Show hasn’t been the Brak Show since it stopped being Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak! The sitcom version is OK but it holds not the dimmest of candles to the two Brak specials that preceded it.
TGTTM is the worst shite ever.
I must have no taste either.
And every Will Ferrell movie ever made.
<hijack> WTF is Super Milk Chan supposed to be about??? I saw 1 episode and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Though the way the gal says “You dumbass!” is kinda funny. </hijack>
Brak should have been left on Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. He was actually kind of funny on there fairly regularly.
WHAT!
ATHF is some of the best cartoon comedy since the Simpsons had its heyday. It’s totally original and bizarre. The characters are indeed the comedy, because the whole point of teh funny is the shaggy dog humor of the plots where nothing ever works out (not unlike The Big Lewbowski)
Meatwad is the best original character in a long, long time. He’s been the center of some of the best insane dialouge routines since Monty Python.
Now, the last season definately wasn’t anywhere near as good. But it’s still the best original CN comedy. Sealab had it’s moments, but a lot of it later on was just juvenile instead of original
“Mutiny! And who named us
CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK
CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK???”
Yeah. I didn’t like it, then it really amused me for a while, and then that ended kind of abruptly and now I avoid it like all the other original Adult Swim shows. The sharp disagreements are really weird to me, because all of those shows have the exact same sensibility. Which in turn is very loosely borrowed from Family Guy, maybe.
I watched Space Ghost: Coast to Coast when that was on. That seemed to be more about humor and less about weird/dumb for the sake of weird/dumb. What I’ve seen of Tom Goes to the Mayor is eyeball-scorchingly horrible. I wish it was just unfunny. Instead it goes beyond into some realm of “you think we’re gonna try to be funny, but we won’t, in fact we won’t even come close to trying, and that’s really funny, right?” No, it’s stupid.
Honestly, I have no idea. It’s one of those realyl weird anime cartoons, and the only reason I can possibly see it being on Adult Swim is that the Adult Swim people know there are stupid anime fanboys (and girls) in the US who will love anything Japanese because,
“Man, things in Japan are just so much cooler. You don’t even know, man. They are so much smarter and anime is great, all of it. You couldn’t possibly get it unless you understand Japanese culture, man.”
These kind of people piss me off. If you liek a culturem, fine, like it, but don’t rub it in my face thatyou liek it, and don’tcall me dumb or whatever because I don’t. i think half of these peopel are also in self-denial about liking some of these shows, because there is NO redemming quality to Super Milk Chan! None!
(notE: I don’t think everyone who likes anime/Japanese culture is annoying, just the ones who seem to make a huge deal about it.)
That’s exactly how I feel. Plus, the animation style is really ugly.
The Simpsons and Family Guy are totally different. The Simpsons has a son and two daughters. Family Guy has a daughter and two sons.
Totally different.
Plus, The SImpsons has sucked for about the last four years.
If you’d just said, “I think the worst Simpsons is still better than the best Family Guy,” I wouldn’t have cared. It’s this “if you don’t agree with me, it’s because you don’t get it” bullshit that pisses me off. I was a Simpsons watcher from the pilot on; I “get” it just fine. I’d rather watch the worst [adult swim] dross than a new Simpsons episode, so palpable is the stench of desperation on it.
And I realize I’m contributing, so maybe I have no right to complain, but why must every fucking animation thread devolve into Family Guy bashing?
For the same reason that all drains reach the sewer.
I completely disagree. I like both (well, I actually don’t like any of the recent Simpsons. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but it really and truly does suck now) but the comedy is much different. The Simpsons is much more plot-driven with more complex characters and sharp social commentary. Family Guy is anarchic, non-sequitor comedy with little reliance on plot and more of an emphasis on parodying pop culture. Also, the characters are less developed and more one-dimensional than the Simpsons. Now, that may sound like a critique, but I love Family Guy for what it is. I don’t want it to be any deeper or more complicated.
I really don’t see how Family Guy and The Simpsons can be considered all that similar. To me, at least, they’re completely different styles of comedy.