There are three shows that come to mind when you say animated comedy. Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy. These are the big names and each show has made millions of dollars and entertained millions more over the years. But the progression of these shows reveals what i see as a rather depressing trend. A trend commonly referred to as stupid humor, jokes and comedy that are only funny because they are so stupid or ridiculous. Now there are certain instances where these are acceptable forms of humor and when timed right can be very funny. But when the show focuses mainly on stupid humor its just not that funny. Lets first look at The Simpsons. What people consider to be the first great adult aimed animated comedy show. Yes it had a lot of outrageous and quite frankly stupid moments, but lets face it, the majority of the show was very witty and could really make people think. Then South Park came out. Still could be very witty and smart, hell its aimed a lot at more satirical than anything else, but most of its plots and jokes centered around the more outrageous and stupid. But still it’s a very funny show. Then Family Guy came out. When it started it had wit and intelligence, but as the show progressed the dumber the humor became. It became more sex, gay, retard, and fart jokes. Basically it just catered to stupid humor and stopped caring about things like plot and intellect. And unfortunately enough this coincided with a current trend in humor the was geared towards stupid humor. This trend happened in children’s cartoons. If one is to look at children’s cartoons you can see the drop in intellect. Now what was on T.V back in the day, He-Man, Thudercats, Transformers. Awesome. What proceeded shows like these; Ren and Stimpy, Rockos Modern Life, Invader Zim. Again, awesome, but these were comedies. Wether or not they were intended for children doesn’t matter, the point is children watched them, and they had a lot of witty humor that really made you say, “Wait? Did they SERIOUSLY just do that?!?!” but at the same time the writers employed a lot of quite frankly stupid humor. But these show were still very funny. But who proceeded them? One little yellow square, aka Spongebob. Now if you like Spongebob or not you have to admit that the humor on the show as really stupid and anything but smart. And that’s just it, as animated shows have progressed in time the humor has gotten dumber and dumber. Is it because these shows are being geared more towards children who wouldn’t understand smart humor? Are adult comedies like Family Guy dumb solely because the audience have been growing up on stupid humor shows? Or is society as a whole becoming dumber and thus not concerned with “smart” comedies? Time will only tell.
(I would also like the record to show that in spite of the views presented in this article I watch all the shows listed above. Except for Spongebob. I’m sorry but that shows just not funny.)
