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I hold myself accountable to Alfred E Neuman, at all times.
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Aug 6, 2023 00:21
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Mantis42 posted:Family Guy was right about Monty Python Family Guy, of all loving shows, is distinctly unqualified to talk poo poo about Monty Python.
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Aug 6, 2023 00:42
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why? they've made me laugh like a 1000x more than monty python has
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Aug 6, 2023 00:45
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Being a UK viewer is maybe a bit different because my experience at least has been to just accept American shows will be full of baffling references to things that I don’t understand— expecting to understand all the references is alien to me, even now. Like last week I had to look up what IHOP was. “It’s not that loving international!” I shouted at the screen
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Aug 6, 2023 00:46
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vegetables posted:Being a UK viewer is maybe a bit different because my experience at least has been to just accept American shows will be full of baffling references to things that I don’t understand— expecting to understand all the references is alien to me, even now. Do you even have maple syrup in the United Kingdom???
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Aug 6, 2023 00:48
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vegetables posted:Like last week I had to look up what IHOP was. “It’s not that loving international!” I shouted at the screen Starting to regret Brexit yet? 
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Aug 6, 2023 00:49
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vegetables posted:Being a UK viewer is maybe a bit different because my experience at least has been to just accept American shows will be full of baffling references to things that I don’t understand— expecting to understand all the references is alien to me, even now. Lol that's hilarious But for real waffle house > ihop
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Aug 6, 2023 01:01
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First of May posted:Principal Skinner, I need some shoes.
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Aug 6, 2023 01:13
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edogawa rando posted:Family Guy, of all loving shows, is distinctly unqualified to talk poo poo about Monty Python.
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Aug 6, 2023 01:16
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It's not wrong though. At all.
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Aug 6, 2023 01:17
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Cosmik Debris posted:But for real waffle house > ihop Word.
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Aug 6, 2023 01:32
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Cosmik Debris posted:Nowadays with streaming, there's absolutely no reason to watch any show made before the office. This was buried in the longer overall post, but is a massive "disregard all TV opinions" red flag.
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Aug 6, 2023 01:37
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I wasn't saying I think that, but that I personally know people who do. GenZ considers seinfeld old and unfunny. People's opinions on stuff have changed so much, a lot of shows we grew up with and enjoyed are considered "problematic" or unfunny. I mean, this is a simpsons thread, so I dont even need to go into it. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Aug 6, 2023 |
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Aug 6, 2023 02:12
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Cosmik Debris posted:I wasn't saying I think that, but that I personally know people who do. GenZ considers seinfeld old and unfunny. Shut up idiot.
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Aug 6, 2023 02:28
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after a long while, got around to watching a few of the current newer simpson episodes, and...they seemed to have gotten better after the low points a decade ago. actually laughed a bit. the ones i watched Krusty's Clown College, and one where Homer almost dies and has an out of body experience
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Aug 6, 2023 02:35
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Cosmik Debris posted:Lol that's hilarious Gotta be ready to throw down if you go to Waffle House though. Huh... Maybe they'd work out well in Scotland.
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Aug 6, 2023 02:46
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Society as a whole should grow over time (and hopefully continually improve). Given that, it's perfectly ok for something to go from once being socially adored to later being considered extremely problematic
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Aug 6, 2023 02:52
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GateOfD posted:after a long while, got around to watching a few of the current newer simpson episodes, and...they seemed to have gotten better after the low points a decade ago. actually laughed a bit. lurk more
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Aug 6, 2023 03:03
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Sentient Data posted:Society as a whole should grow over time (and hopefully continually improve). Given that, it's perfectly ok for something to go from once being socially adored to later being considered extremely problematic I hope one day the word "problematic" is itself considered problematic.
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Aug 6, 2023 03:19
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You Are A Elf posted:Go back and revisit ANY comedy sketch show from any time period and you’ll find that each and every one is 10% memorable comedy gold and 90% stupid time filler and badly dated references. They all suck when you revisit them. Like, a fair bit of Flying Circus relied on fairly cultural references that would be very alien to an American audience. Case in point the Derby Council v. All Blacks sketch, which I imagine would be almost impenetrable to someone from North America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W69tqSa6bHQ While this is one of their weaker bits, I also understand what it is referring to, and I don't intend to explain it. Sentient Data posted:Society as a whole should grow over time (and hopefully continually improve). Given that, it's perfectly ok for something to go from once being socially adored to later being considered extremely problematic Like, say, the Communist Quiz skit, which features Terry Gilliam doing yellow face when it was performed live on stage.
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Aug 6, 2023 03:29
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You Are A Elf posted:Aside from what’s been mentioned, Benny Hill and Mr. Bean were huge in America in the ‘90s. I remember that one. While it's very of its time, I feel like it works all the more for Mr Bean being a fish out of water of a society that he barely understands in the first place, and also that the joke is on the Americans shrugging off his weirdness as being foreign. Borat also comes to mind. Momomo posted:There are many things about the old Simpsons I found hilarious and only found out they were references decades later. I don't think the drop in quality has anything to do with relating to the things they reference, they just don't know how to be funny. Yep. A lot of the references are done in a way that stands up as funny on its own, and the pacing usually is such that even if it doesn't land, there'll be another joke along in five seconds. I've also said that while there's a lot of ancient references to stuff clearly from the writers' childhoods rather than anything contemporary- Krusty's whole show being already very anachronistic- but I find the contemporary references more impressive in hindsight, especially compared to a lot of other shows doing the same things. Like they were basically the only show in the 90s (and most of the 00s) where the writers seem to know what video games actually are, let alone having pretty on-point parodies of contemporary games and the culture surrounding them that were actually funny on their own merits too. Bonestorm and its marketing just captured the 90s Mortal Kombat mania perfectly, and the babysitter literally dangling a new game over Bart to get him to behave was perfect. It's just plain good writing, and writers that aren't stupid and don't treat their audience as stupid. You Are A Elf posted:NuSimpsons is nothing more than a Friedberg & Seltzer parody movie from the 2000s. Remember those? And most of them made big bank It's amazing how long those kept going despite no one liking them. I think they just got by on the same principle Zombie Simpsons does; they present the trappings of what people know to be A Comedy and present enough noise and familiar references to keep them vaguely entertained for an hour, and people keep watching mostly out of habit. That said they seemed to have zero shelf life and disappeared seemingly overnight. Bum the Sad posted:Gotta be ready to throw down if you go to Waffle House though. Waffle House and similar 24/7 chains for the most part don't exist in Australia, but apparently the place you go for cheap bad food and a bizarre fistfight at 3am in Australia is an inner city 24 hour McDonald's.
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Aug 6, 2023 07:16
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Mantis42 posted:why? they've made me laugh like a 1000x more than monty python has I wouldn't accuse my worst enemy of that, ouch
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Aug 6, 2023 07:31
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All comedy nerds are insufferable and most insufferable are Monty Python nerds.
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Aug 6, 2023 08:49
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Even the best comedians in the world aren't gonna knock it out of the park every time. The mostly crap Monty Python stuff is got them the experience and money to make the good stuff. Probably helped how much of it is on a budget of whatever they could scrounge up from behind the BBC parking lot. Animation on the other hand is expensive and takes a long time to make- it's absolutely worth workshopping and making drat well sure it's something worth making.
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Aug 6, 2023 09:00
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Fish of hemp posted:All comedy nerds are insufferable and most insufferable are Monty Python nerds. It's true but mostly because everyone comes through "lol so random!" phase, which then works itself into pop culture omniparody of everything. Add some "they couldn't do it now, because of political correctness!", completely forgetting that those shows were done during bleak conservative cold war times, and nowadays we are worrying about fascism infection on every cultural front and bad actord trolling the public consciousness into indifference towards violence directed at minorites, thus the comedy itswlf had to change from "guys in costumes acting pompous" school of elite UK universities made sketches
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Aug 6, 2023 09:55
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laserghost posted:It's true but mostly because everyone comes through "lol so random!" phase, which then works itself into pop culture omniparody of everything. Add some "they couldn't do it now, because of political correctness!", completely forgetting that those shows were done during bleak conservative cold war times, and nowadays we are worrying about fascism infection on every cultural front and bad actord trolling the public consciousness into indifference towards violence directed at minorites, thus the comedy itswlf had to change from "guys in costumes acting pompous" school of elite UK universities made sketches Batman is a scientist
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Aug 6, 2023 09:56
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In what brand of science he works? I know it probably depends on which universes' Batman we are talking about
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Aug 6, 2023 09:58
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laserghost posted:In what brand of science he works? I know it probably depends on which universes' Batman we are talking about Material Science
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Aug 6, 2023 10:02
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laserghost posted:In what brand of science he works? I know it probably depends on which universes' Batman we are talking about The answer is usually 'yes'. Maybe with a leaning towards social sciences, criminology and whatever his latest mad scientist nemesis is on about this week.
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Aug 6, 2023 10:07
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laserghost posted:In what brand of science he works? I know it probably depends on which universes' Batman we are talking about Forensics (so he's not a real scientist)
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Aug 6, 2023 13:18
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It's not batman!
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Aug 6, 2023 13:50
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I watched all of Monty Python when I was a teenager because al of it was up on Youtube in those days. I enjoyed it, but I could see how a whole lot had depreciated from not just being from a foreign culture, but from being from another era and not being on TV. So much of Flying Circus focused on the idea of being designed to blend in with with other TV, so presumably a lot of viewers would tune in at the middle of an episode and be very confused. So a decent amount is lost from being removed from the contexts and aesthetics of the 70s TV it was basing itself off of, although the absurd bits are more evergreen. The Simpsons is a bit more subtle about how reliant it was on the state of TV in the 90s, but a lot of it hinged on being able to toss out a broad range of references to a number of things that it was confident its audience would be immediately familiar with, and that gave episodes a lot more zest, whereas now when the Simpsons makes references, there's some kind of sense that it feels the need to explain from the ground up what it's referencing like it's the first time its audience has heard of it (which could be just as much from the age of the writers as from the death of the TV monoculture).
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Aug 6, 2023 17:06
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Ghost Leviathan posted:A lot of the references are done in a way that stands up as funny on its own, and the pacing usually is such that even if it doesn't land, there'll be another joke along in five seconds. It's interesting that Family Guy and the disdain for it has come up in the meantime, because I can see a direct line from the Simpsons reference humor to Family Guy's whole model. The Simpsons is the blueprint, using both popular contemporary celebrities and obscure historical references and not limiting either category to being the smart or dumb jokes but constantly switching it up. Sometimes you do a massively obscure reference as a throwaway gag just for the Ivy league writing room and sometimes if the joke's good enough you can just put it front and center for minutes and let the audience laugh whether or not they fully understand the context. You can take a huge popstar and make a really clever joke about some relatively unknown part of their background or you can invoke someone that a quarter of the audience might vaguely remember from school and do a fart joke. Family Guy just decided to take away all restraint. There are, of course, huge differences in the way those jokes are inserted into their respective shows and in the makeup of the writers' rooms themselves that affect the quality, I'm just talking about the general approach to the writing. But it seems like some people on the Family Guy team had really taken notice of the execution of these jokes and the variable levels of obscurity and tried to weaponize the formula. And it continues further down the pipeline, like Rick and Morty is clearly trying to concentrate the highbrow/lowbrow, reverent/irreverent, shortform/longform mix of references but the overall blueprint still seems to be the way classic Simpsons did it.
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Aug 6, 2023 18:06
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SlothfulCobra posted:I watched all of Monty Python when I was a teenager because al of it was up on Youtube in those days. I enjoyed it, but I could see how a whole lot had depreciated from not just being from a foreign culture, but from being from another era and not being on TV. So much of Flying Circus focused on the idea of being designed to blend in with with other TV, so presumably a lot of viewers would tune in at the middle of an episode and be very confused. If a single word pops to mind about modern Simpsons humor, it's "slideshow." Not even a Powerpoint presentation, but actual, physical slides. Like that Burns-at-Yale clip that was posted a while back. "Here's a thing about Yale. Here's another thing about Yale. Here's a thing about the Whiffenpoofs. Here's another thing about the Whiffenpoofs." And so on.
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Aug 6, 2023 19:33
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Keromaru5 posted:That was actually sort of my impression when I finally watched through all of it. While I largely felt it held up, I took their approach as, basically, "What if BBC programming just broke," so I imagine a lot of it makes more sense if you happened to be watching the Beeb back then. The Escape From Film sketch is a great example of this, as it's basically all about how shows on British television were filmed, and the technical limitations of the day (interior shots were usually filmed using video cameras, exterior shots were done on 16mm film and tape recorders).
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Aug 6, 2023 20:08
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I still have no idea who Mel Zetz is or why his suit would fit on Bart, I have no idea who the union rep with the jowly voice is from Klassic Krusty. There’s a million things like that throughout the classic Simpsons era. Clearly those are deep cuts for people who were middle aged in 1990 but I still loved those moments as they aired and still think they’re funny now. I think a lot of these one-off references are Harvard nerd writer jokes that were never widely understood or meant to be but the funniness never relied on the reference part of the joke. So it’s not really comparable to other shows where references become outdated or inscrutable.
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Aug 6, 2023 22:02
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Hedgehog Pie posted:I went to see the movie when it came out. I was 17 then but still a big fan of the golden years. I remember being so disappointed. I can't remember any bits I enjoyed, but I can definitely recall spider pig and Bart's knob. I was 27, and other than the cringey "boob lady" bit, the only part I remember vividly and enjoy is the weird line reading of "IT'S DISSOLVING OUR BARGE". Oh, and Marge dropping a GD. Cosmik Debris posted:Americans know Monty python because of their many movies and not because of the flying circus, or any of the shows that they spawned. dude PBS After Dark was constantly running Flying Circus back in the mid-80s. I saw my first televised boobs on it. Mantis42 posted:Family Guy was right about Monty Python As bad as early Family Guy could be, it's kind of rad that they pulled this bit out to parody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGBZnfB46es You Are A Elf posted:Go back and revisit ANY comedy sketch show from any time period and you’ll find that each and every one is 10% memorable comedy gold and 90% stupid time filler and badly dated references. They all suck when you revisit them. nobody remembers "classic" SNL from the 70s, they remember those hourlong highlight reels they used to run 
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Aug 6, 2023 23:44
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Years ago I went through the entire first 5 seasons of SNL, and they had Buck Henry host a lot.
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Aug 7, 2023 00:50
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People also tend to forget that Bozo the Clown was still in syndication in the 90s, so Krusty wasn't all that alien to kids who watched Saturday morning television. I'm not really sure what my son makes of Krusty because he has nothing to anchor him, not even the idea of Saturday morning kids TV reruns because we don't have that in my house (foreign country + only streaming).
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Aug 7, 2023 01:17
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Atlas Hugged posted:People also tend to forget that Bozo the Clown was still in syndication in the 90s, so Krusty wasn't all that alien to kids who watched Saturday morning television. We went from the Age of Broadcast ever since the invention of the radio to the Age of Streaming around 2011; a hell of a lot of jokes that used that as the anchor point for many of these jokes, short and long, are gonna seem completely foreign to them. Millenials are the one and only generation who can appreciate the strengths of both formats. Your son is part of the guinea pig Streaming generation with no prior Age bracket to help navigate these waters, and will also be the only gen to have this issue as the one superseding him will be using the sparknotes version of what that gen pieced together from nothing for guidance. It's a bit of a small bummer!
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Aug 7, 2023 02:03
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