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The F-Plus Predicts The Future!

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agentanalogue:
So in "Drowning in a Bucket of Words" you guys read that dis-poem about Rihana, which in one line says she should get beaten harder by Chris Brown.  Lemon says that the poem's author is a writer for Tosh.0, and Portaxx jumps in that she thinks it's more Family guy.

Lo and behold, Seth McFarlane made that EXACT unfunny joke at the Oscars last night.  Well played, all.

One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes:
I probably won't ever get into long discussions about "what makes good comedy," but I will say one running theme I've noticed is the element of surprise. If your audience sees it coming, it's usually not going to be funny UNLESS the fact that it's an obvious joke is part of the gag. I could write a whole fucking paper on why Family Guy isn't funny, but that's definitely one of the more obvious reasons. If you've ever met some stupid unfunny asshole who says "nobody likes me because I'm a jerk and PROUD! I'll say anything I want!! XD" it's the same level of predictability; a bad thing happens, and the unfunny asshole says "haha isn't it funny that bad thing happened? I'm glad it happened! Uh-oh look out person, I bet that bad thing will happen again and it'll be FUNNY AGAIN XD"

There's no joke there, it's boring, and above all it's predictable. You could practically storyboard a whole episode of Family Guy and it'd probably be 90% accurate. I like to think one of the reasons why the podcast works is that none of us do that shit.

STOG:
I suspect that Family Guy/American Dad/Daddy America/Lrikgnd Khjg is written intentionally to appeal to as many lowest-common denominator shitheads as possible and that there are smart guys producing utter shit for people to eat up.

My evidence is a book called How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. He was a co-writer on the show American Dad, and when I saw his name on the back I thought "Excellent, this will likely be a book full of shitty jokes that I can knock off during a bus ride". Then I read it and it was actually damn good! A bit cloying and overpowering at points, but I enjoyed it. And it won the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2010 (whatever that big name does for you).

Adam Bozarth:
Along with the element of surprise, comedy needs a target. It's just a shame that Seth MacFarlane is a bully. A bully in the sense that inflicting embarrassment or pain on someone else is enough for a laugh. We are also psychologically wired to do the same.

The other unfortunate thing is that it seems to be the comedy vogue to pick on the little guy. There's a dog-pile mentality to it. Once someone starts laughing at the misfortunes of otherwise decent people, the cowardly voices realize it's safe and jump on board.

I'd say this is different than F+. since the show is about highlighting strident stupidity and freaky kinks, and the target is always the mindset that creates this stupidity or the echo chamber that supports it.

A bit off track of me.

It's not hard to make a prediction that Tosh or MacFarlane would make a beating joke about Rhianna and Chris Brown being back together, since they'd make one if she hadn't. The amazing prediction is that the poem came true!

Lemon:
This is clearly a topic we all agree on, so let's just belabor the point for a while longer, okay?

The other unfortunate thing is that it seems to be the comedy vogue to pick on the little guy.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure it's comedy vogue as much as it is not actively discouraged and it's still easy and basically without consequence. It's completely a subversion of satire, but it still sounds like satire, so the audience can tell themselves that they're taking part in something edgy, and something outside the mainstream, but in actuality it's just a defense of a status quo. Daniel Tosh will make a rape joke which is essentially "Rape exists har har" and then when that backfires, people will rush to its defense as though "political correctness" is anything but a worn-out strawman everyone can point at and proudly bellow "Hey man, I'm not one of those guys."

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