News-Record.com

I enjoyed it when it first came on and even then it had it's moments that made you cringe. Once it enjoyed some ratings success they really started pushing the envelope and I quit watching it completely.

We used to wonder where the line was on certain types of humor. Now I wonder if there is even a line. The good news is that I think people are starting to get bored with music, movies, and TV shows built around shock value. It will be interesting to see whether we self-regulate this stuff by turning it off or if it gets worse.

Here is what was available concurrently. Find something that better suits your sensibilities.

Allen, did you lose your remote?

Everyone has a topic that they can't bear to see made fun of. I know a pastor who won't tolerate any jokes about Communion. My wife was extremely touchy about our neice's blindness for several years. I expect "the line" to draw on humor is pretty vague.

No one wanted to hear jokes about 9/11, the Challenger accident or the assassinations of JFK or MLK. Yet eventually, humor did come out (even if only in whispers) about all of those things.

I see comedy as part of popular culture's discussion. Making a joke about Reagan's alzheimers, or the former Pope's many problems (as South Park often did) is offensive to many, true... but they perhaps should be tolerated because they keep the subject alive and make discussing them and thinking about them a little less taboo.

Allen, you don't need to look on the TV to see "offensive cartoons"

You should try living INSIDE an offensive cartoon, like living in north High Point or Jamestown, having your schoolboard rep desert you, and be caught in a pincer between crazed boardmembers from central High Point trying to grab your kids to replace kids from their region who have fled to private schools, AND pseudo-liberal boardmembers and columnists from Greensboro, who, being totally unwilling to alter their own town, will get their jollies by voting and playing liberal politically-correct lip service, to see what they think are some rich-white upstarts from another town get hung on the cross for the past racial transgressions of Guilford co.

Dude, don't you get enough opportunities to complain about the school board? Was it really necessary to try and skew this discussion to the subject you want to whine about?

Eric, it was only to illustrate what one considers too far is simply vantage-point dependent. Sorry to cause you distress or for boring you. Sure wouldn't want to do that.

On the subject of "South Park," I find the humor generally smarter than "Family Guy," although it, too, considers nothing taboo.
Ironically, "South Park" reruns air locally on Channel 45, the Sinclair Broadcasting station that would not air "Saving Private Ryan because some of the profanity was considered offensive.
Go figure.

I agree that South Park is more intelligent or topical than Family Guy. However, I think both shows are hilarious most of the time because they do poke fun at everything. Some of it is over the top, but we are so used to Hollywood/ShowBiz taking a one sided politically correct view that it is great to see fair and balanced roasting.

The scene in the restaurant where Brian says "I'm a real MLK guy, MLK all the way" was funny because it was so stereotypical of the lengths some people will go to appeal to a group of people without realizing it is patronizing.

I love Ronald Reagan, but I was not offended by the Alzheimer's bit. A lot of humorists made fun of Reagan's mental faculties before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and he proved them all to be fools. Reagan had a great sense of self deprecating humor.

Shows like Family Guy and South Park provided much needed levity and often keen satirical observation in a politically correct world that often takes itself too seriously. I think too often people are offended simply because they think they should be offended.

But, Sam, satire ought to have a point, shouldn't it? I thought Brian's MLK line was a hoot. So, what was the point of the Reagan bit?

I can't say. I will say that one of the criticisms of Family Guy from within the industry is that the show is not written well. That is to say that much of the show is comprised of little unrelated bits where there is a set up and a punch line without a strong plot. I'm not sure I agree with that, although I will concede the plots are not groundbreaking nor as smart as the Simpsons or South Park.

But one of the charms of Family Guy are the little side voyages it frequently takes to unrelated territory. The Reagan bit was a good example of taking one word or phrase and writing a whole bit around it.

I agree. It's scattershot and free-association by design, kind of like an animated version of "Laugh-In."

Eric

Every opportunity for satire will be used to show the truth about the school board. As you said it so well "it keeps the subject alive". Cartoons can put the truth right up there in someome's face. It cannot be ignored at that point.

Eric just like people can turn off the remote, you can move your mouse.

I am anartists who often uses Dad-esque satire myself. The non-sequitur is all about NOT having "a point". Absurdity has a history older than Groucho Marx (or Karl, for that matter). Reagan's fog was a lot easier to smile over than the fog of war, you gotta admit.
There's always an element of Schaudenfreude (amusement at others' misery) in slapstick or "low" comedy. Chaplin and Keaton relied on it.

Family Guy isn't Chaplin, Keaton of Groucho, of course. It's closer to Ben Stiller. But considering Steve Martin has become a flimsy echo of his former wild and crazy guy, I'll welcome a good solid skewering of middle class family values any day. There's plenty of tripe and treacle for the offended to go fill their bellies with if they want to flip the remote.

I see my fingers betrayed me: I am an archist, not antarcticist. On the Front Pew it's antigrist. Forgive the Mars of the Pennedwince; I need to get a better keyboard.

I withdraw my 'tude, Allen. My own limit was reached.