# Matt Groening has faith in the relaunch of Futurama **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 20, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407 "2005-12-20T04:43:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/61 "2005-12-21T00:12:51Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Family Guy always struck me as seriously lazy writing: come up with a lame excuse for an episode of a TV show, and then cram it full of easy sight gags. It’s to the creators’ credit that many of those gags really were funny, but they weren’t funny enough to make the show watchable for me. I feel sorta like I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t like that show. No, I feel the same way. Not to turn this thread into yet another Futurama vs. Family Guy pissing contest, but a great many of Family Guy’s jokes just relied on the viewer recognizing a reference to some other TV show. After a while, it just lost that appeal for me. Futurama’s cleverness and the fact that I cared about the characters made it a show I still enjoy watching. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/62 "2005-12-21T00:31:54Z")
> [@jrfranchi](#): > > I missed some of these and I am a computer geek. The Chip I knew, Old Fortran of course and Capek etc. But what is a Klein bottle and why 0 oz? > I came up [with this from Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle) > and [Get an ACME KLEIN BOTTLE](http://www.kleinbottle.com/) > So never mind the what, but even a Klein bottle would hold liquid. It will hold liquid, true. The joke is that in topology theory, a Klein bottle has only one side, and therefore has no volume. (That’s why the good folks at Acme have a [nice graduated measure decal](http://www.kleinbottle.com/images/M%26M'sinKleinBottleCloseup.jpg) that goes from zero all the way up to zero.) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/63 "2005-12-21T00:50:25Z")
Hey, [Fark picked up my Slashdot story](http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1819166). I feel like such a celebrity. [Merry X-Mas](http://homepage.mac.com/katcolli/.Pictures/photoshops/hallowedbefryname.jpg). [sub]P.S. Thanks **fluid**. You’re my hero.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/64 "2005-12-21T04:21:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Family Guy is “absurdist”, and there’s nothing new about that type of humor to call any other types “traditional”. Other absurdist comedies include the recent seasons of Saturday Night Live, and Arrested Development Comparing (ick) **Family Guy** to **Arrested Development**?!? _ **Them’s fightin’ words!!!** _ I wouldn’t call AD absurdist comedy. AD relies on very complex, interwoven storylines and usually very subtle (and dark) humor. There are many words I would use to describe Family Guy (lame, sophomoric, low-brow). **Subtle** is not one of them. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/65 "2005-12-21T04:33:52Z")
[IMDB listing.](http://imdb.com/title/tt0471711/) ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/66 "2005-12-21T04:43:56Z")
So mods stepped in to fix coding in another user’s message, but I have a Frankenmessage that’s a mix of a quote of someone else and what I was writing. I reported it _and_ mentioned it later in the thread, and yet none of the mods have actually dealt with it. :: sigh :: ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/67 "2005-12-21T05:34:00Z")
> [@Hail Ants](#): > > I wouldn’t call AD absurdist comedy. AD relies on very complex, interwoven storylines and usually very subtle (and dark) humor. Subtle? Tobias’ Mary Poppins act to get close to his daughter is “subtle?” “I just got off the steamer from Blackstool!” 'We squirt a tube of frosting down out throat before we take our medication… Lalalala!" Buster having sex with the Roomba that replaced the maid he was having sex with is subtle? A father that talks about the famous brothers from the Bible, “Goofus and Gallant,” isn’t absurdist? The [Star Wars Kid reference](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/21/Arrested_Development_-_Star_Wars_Kid.jpg)? You realize that you could take most of the gags in _Arrested Development_ and drop them into _Family Guy_ without anyone blinking, right? They have very similar sensibilities, as far as humour is concerned: dark, over-the-top absurdism and shock – the main difference is that one has a larger ensemble, is live action, serialized, and narrated, and the other one has a baby with a football-shaped head. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/68 "2005-12-21T05:45:57Z")
_AD_ is capable of subtlety and complexity that _Family Guy_ is not, but yeah, it’s not always like that. Yesterday’s episode had several jokes about GOB putting a dove in his pants (ending with a boner joke, of course). ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/69 "2005-12-21T14:57:56Z")
“AD” is more consistently absurdist than Family Guy. From Family Guy I can immediately think of examples of satire (Church of the Fonz) and wit (“she looks like someone pulled silly putty over their knee!”) and loads of parody, but almost all the memorable gags from “AD” are absurdist. That’s not a bad thing. Even though the concept sounds simple, it takes talent to come up with a competent absurdist gag. I can easily have a straight-faced conversation about teacher’s unions and randomly crow “cock-a-doodle-doo” while doing so, but that wouldn’t be as funny as a guy at a PTA meeting screaming “The PTA has disbanded!” and leaping out of the window, only to immediately leap gracefully back in when the PTA head tells him he’s mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407/70 "2005-12-22T06:15:12Z")
I saw the article I quoted from is now being quoted on a few other sites and discussion boards. friedo’s post can be found in Google News if you googlenews Futurama. Maybe we can help them along in deciding to bring it back. Jim [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matt-groening-has-faith-in-the-relaunch-of-futurama/336407.md?page=3)