Turns Out, I'm Not The Only One...

If you've read this blog more than once, you know that I hate Family Guy. Not just because it's a startlingly unfunny show, but because Fox has seen fit to resurrect it twice, while incredibly funny shows like Arrested Development are shown the door. Arrested could only wish to get as many chances to be as unfunny as Family Guy.

Yet I seem to be alone in my hate of Family Guy. Whenever the subject of Family Guy comes up, I'm told what a funny show it is, and what a dummy I am for hating it. I've even had people tell me about parts from a show that sound funny, but when I watch it, I'm laughing about as much as I would watching Schindler's List. Maybe it's just me: I don't know what "funny" is. Maybe Schindler's List and Family Guy are hilarious, and the jokes are just going over my head.

But then, two guys who have never failed to make me laugh, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, rather boldly showed me that I was right.

If you missed it, the most recent episode of South Park, called "Cartoon Wars," featured a plot in which Cartman is determined to get to Hollywood to get Family Guy off the air, not because of an inflammatory episode (shades of South Park's own recent tribulations), but because it's just not funny. I am totally on the same page.

The funniest thing about the episode, which is oddly serious in tone, are the parodies of the aforementioned "inflammatory" episode. The jokes that Stone and Parker wrote are pretty much exactly what Seth McFarland would write. (I wouldn't be surprised if McFarland, who's an infamous plagarist, used these same jokes in future episodes.) And if jokes that are meant to be unfunny parodies are identical to the "funny" jokes in the actual show, well, folks, what you've got there is an unfunny show.

It's always good to know that you've got powerful friends in what appears to be a losing cause. Now, if only everyone else would see the light...