Last night South Park, in a way only South Park can, managed to
mix Family Guy and the recent kerfuffle over cartoons involving the Prophet Muhammed into a scathing indictment
of both. In the South Park universe, the "offensive Muhammed cartoon" is an episode of Family
Guy which the Fox Network decides to censor. Cartman convinces Kyle to join him on his quest to get the episode
off the air. It turns out Cartman doesn't care about the offensive episode, he just really, really, hates Family
Guy, calling it poorly-written and accusing it of using interchangeable jokes, rather than jokes that actually
have something to do with the plot.
I've said it on this blog and elsewhere that Family Guy's humor can be very jarring at times. Whatever plot there is has to be ground to a halt in order to insert as many one-off gags as possible. There's no effort on behalf of the writers to try and weave jokes into the story, jokes simply pop in and out wherever they seem to fit. In that regard, it's not even comparable to shows like South Park and The Simpsons, which take a more substantive approach to their humor and satire, even if South Park appears to delve into the same scatological humor as Family Guy at times.
There's a mistake that a lot of critics make, and that's to judge a show on what you think it should be rather than what it's actually trying to be. Does Family Guy use interchangeable jokes? Yes, it does, and so did the classic Warner Bros. cartoons from which the show takes its aesthetic. Family Guy has never been about depth, it has always been, from the first season on, about getting yucks. It is a CARTOON in every sense of the word, a series of animated drawings packed with as many jokes as possible, plot be damned. Nobody watches Family Guy hoping to hear some profound truth or see some hidden injustice exposed. If they want that kind of experience, they'll watch South Park. Or, if they can wrap their mind around the concept that two cartoons can have vastly different approaches to humor, they might actually be able to watch and enjoy both.
There's a moment toward the end of the episode when Kyle's Big Wheel goes crashing off a mountain, stops, and then bursts into flame. This same joke, one in which something shouldn't catch on fire but does, has been done before by both The Simpsons and Family Guy. In fact, you don't have to watch any of these animated programs for very long before you start to see some of the same gags and pop culture references. When I watched the Big Wheel explode, I thought to myself that despite making every effort to set itself apart from everything in order to have a more accurate satirical vantage point, South Park and its creators don't exist in a vacuum. Many people will tell you that any creative endeavor is just a matter of filtering and arranging ideas which already exist, and this is especially true for comedy writers. If you find something funny, it's likely someone else found it funny as well and has done it before. It's not about who did what first, it's about how you frame the joke and give it your own personal signature. In that regard, I think both Family Guy and South Park do just fine.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-06-2006 @ 9:40AM
Thomas said...
Last night episode was amazing and I think their is a level you're missing. I think the episode also used Family Guy in place of their own South Park and Fox in place of Comedy Central in terms of the Virgin Mary episode last season that lead to the Catholic Church having it removed. Which was eveident in the final line, "If Comedy Central doesn't puss out!"
Peace
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4-06-2006 @ 9:47AM
Sean said...
So..um did you like the episode?
I like how Trey & Matt where able to voice their opinions about Family Guy and having an episode pulled by Scientologists in one swoop.
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4-06-2006 @ 9:54AM
Elliott said...
I never understood people who found it necessary to support one of these shows and then put the other one down. They are different, and both good.
I really enjoyed all the other references in last night's episode. Calling Cartman a hypocrite was intended for Isaac Hayes and since South Park actually did have an episode with Muhammed, they were using Family Guy as a way to make fun of themselves as well. For example, Family Guy is not Fox's most popular show, but South Park is Comedy Central's, which means that the producers will meet any of their demands I guess.
My favorite line of the night, "How would you like it if there was a show that made fun of Jews all the time?" You almost expected it to be followed by an "Oh, wait..."
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4-06-2006 @ 10:39AM
corbett said...
It took a few minutes, but it was pretty clear by the end that the South Park guys were substituting Family Guy and Fox for themselves and Comedy Central (while also getting in a funny dig at Family Guy at the same time).
The question is... Are they going to do a part 2? Will they try to actually show Muhammed... and if so, will Comedy Central puss out?
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4-06-2006 @ 10:57AM
Chris W said...
I think it's funny that the people against Family Guy in this episode are Cartman and the adults. South Park has taught us never to trust Cartman or the adults, because they ALWAYS screw up. Cartman is conniving and untrustworthy, and the adults are just dumb. Stan and Kyle are the characters that will usually sum up the writers' feelings about a particular issue.
Also, I don't think it's meant to have a part 2... at least not yet. This issue about freedom of speech and censorship and hurt feelings isn't resolved and isn't going to be anytime soon. So, it's only fitting that South Park illustrate this with a very overdone cliff-hanger.
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4-06-2006 @ 11:11AM
Lampbane said...
This was one of the most thickly-layer episodes they've done in a while. Family Guy, having an episode pulled because of Scientologists, having an episode pulled because of Catholics, the protests over the Muhammed cartoons... it all fit together nicely.
And it was nice to have someone finally say exactly what bothers me about Family Guy. "It's like that time I..."
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4-06-2006 @ 11:18AM
Dave said...
" if they can wrap their mind around the concept that two cartoons can have vastly different approaches to humor,"
Well said.
Although, I think part of the episode was self mocking. About 80% of South Park Jokes are shock value bathroom type jokes, too, with an occasional topical episode thrown in. I think Cartman's rant was to make fun of people who view South Park as high brow.
Hell if you want to look at it another way. Family Guy is a cartoon for people who get their current events from the news. South Park is a cartoon for people who get their current events from a cartoon!
Who stired up the kool-aid dictating that interchangable jokes are inferior? I think a premise based joke can be more obvious than a non-sequetor.
I like both shows. And last night's South Park was great.
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4-06-2006 @ 11:38AM
Vito said...
You just stole every thought in my brain on this subject. Nice job!
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4-06-2006 @ 11:51AM
TheMatt said...
My favorite part of this episode was during the police-Big Wheel chase. I loved how everyone was power-sliding around. Especially the cops who eventually power-slid into a rollover. For some reason, that just cracked me up.
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4-06-2006 @ 12:09PM
Michael Couvillion said...
The Futurama episode where Dr. Zoidberg's precious Slinky, having been bent by Bender, crashes and catches on fire still cracks me up.
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4-06-2006 @ 1:02PM
Adam said...
You guys are right, there were a lot of layers in this episode, too many for me to cover without getting really long-winded and boring.
And yeah, I did like the episode. :)
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4-06-2006 @ 3:03PM
Ed said...
It almost seems to me the show is maturing too fast.. losing its own innocence and becoming a big dumb adult.
Although I must say the notion of everyone burying his head in the sand was awesome :)
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4-06-2006 @ 4:40PM
Mark said...
I hate when people tear something apart to judge it and ruin it for everyone else. Yeah, Family Guy uses interchangeable jokes, but I still end up rolling on the ground laughing at almost every episode. South Park doesn't make me laugh as much as it makes me say, "Hmmm, I've never thought of it that way before." People who tear apart family guy to ruin it are the same people who give you an extremely detailed critique of the food at every restaurant you go to, when they'd probably enjoy it more if they didn't pick it apart. Also, did anyone else get that the chase scene was from "Final Fantasy"? I think that was supposed to be another crack at Family Guy and their emphasis on copying scenes from movies and TV shows.
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4-06-2006 @ 6:19PM
Sivaramakrishnan Narayanan said...
It was quite clever of them to use Family Guy to do the actual Muhammed jokes. Even the most religious fanatics will have a tough time pin-pointing the "infidel" :)
It was a totally hilarious episode.
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4-06-2006 @ 7:02PM
Chris W said...
Mark, I wouldn't say that South Park was tearing apart Family Guy. Rule of thumb for me is that if Cartman or the adults (who tend to be duped by Cartman fairly often) don't like something, chances are it's a perfectly fine thing to like.
On a side note, I actually thought that the fake Family Guy clips were actually pretty funny... Like if they were in Family Guy, I would actually laugh.
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4-06-2006 @ 7:49PM
BartmanDK said...
Finaly i have been waiting for a show in US to rip on the little crisis we have here in denmark, and its finaly here! :D
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4-06-2006 @ 8:16PM
Jared said...
I actually think South Park was of two minds on the subject on Family Guy. I think Cartman in this episode was supposed to represent a more-negative-than-usual Trey Parker's opinion on Family Guy and Kyle (as usual) was representing Matt's opinion. When Cartman reveals to Kyle that he actually intends to get the show removed entirely, Kyle responds with "but I thought Family Guy would be your type of humor" to which Cartman threatens death on Kyle. The Family Guy aspect of this ep probably stems from an argument Matt and Trey had over the show at some point, with Matt digging FG and Trey brushing it off as 'easy'. I agree that the chase scene was a shot-for-shot recreation from a movie, much like the cripple fight and 'They Live!', but was this chase really from 'Final Fantasy'? And for that matter, if it was, was it 'Spirits Within', or one of the games?
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4-06-2006 @ 8:26PM
Adam said...
Jared,
I actually thought the exact same thing, about Kyle representing Matt's opinion and Cartman representing Trey's. I definitely think Cartman was echoing Trey's assesment of Family Guy, though I have no way to back that up, of course.
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4-06-2006 @ 10:28PM
Seth said...
When I saw the to be continued at the end it reminded me of an early two-part episode they did about Cartman's dad, where they just should a half hour Terrance and Philips episode. I have a feeling that the second part of this episode will be in the same vein and will just be a reairing of the scientology episode. At least that is if "Comedy Central doesn't puss out."
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4-07-2006 @ 12:03AM
Pete said...
I thought the chase scene was a play off of Family Guy's running fight between Peter and the guy in the chicken suit. It was both overly long and dramatic, another point where they make fun of themselves and Family Guy at the same time.
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