Cartoons/animated shows too painful to watch twice

Nail... hit.. on the head. The writing is the worst. It's gotten more enjoyable this season, but even still, the episodes ranged from decent to meh to "they get paid for this?" I especially hate the cameos by the same townspeople. Yes. Sideshow Mel's voice is wacky. Cletus's voice is wacky. Ralph's incessant nonsequitors are wacky. But you took one note jokes and stretched them further and thinner. If they treat Mel and Ralph like characters (the best thing about the primary one was they actually treated him like a character), then they'll work. But just having Mel say "I have a thick Brrrritish accent!!!" or stuff to that effect, you're just relying on lazy jokes.
 
Ugh. Don't get me started on Sideshow Mel, DrTooth. He's the Simpsons equivalent to Family Guy's Herbert, only Mel's shtick is just his "hilarious" voice.

Burns is old. We get it.
Smithers is gay. We get it.
Flanders is a God-fearing psycho. We get it.
Apu hates his wife and 8 children. We get it.
Grandpa is old. We get it.
Lenny and Carl may or may not be gay. We get it.
Marge is lame. We get it.
Comic Book Guy is a nerd. We get it.

In the earlier seasons they were able to make use of these character types but still put them in good stories and make you care about them. Now they just parade these characters in front of the screen, let them do a few seconds of painful, pathetic shtick and then they send them on their way.

Again, these "ivy league graduates" are getting paid for this slop? Sad.

DrTooth, I thought this season got off to an okay start, but asinine trash like "That 90's Show" or the episode with the comic book sub plot that disappeared completely after the first act reminded me how lame and badly written this show is now. Simpsons used to be my favorite show, period. Now if I could only DV-R 3 out of the 4 animated Fox Sunday night shows it would be the Simpsons that I'd skip.

Again, sad.
 
Can I say that I HATE that they did that to Ned? he was intended as the better off neighbor that everyone has to deal with. And the religious angle was always just a reflection of that. When he said "I'm in the race for the cure.. of Homosexuality" a part of me died inside. He went from being Christian to being a negative stereotype of every single Christian Conservative group out there. They totally killed the character for me.




I felt the same way too, though I think the middle of the season was much better. The first couple episodes were weak (the Halloween one especially), and the Comic Book store one seemed like they wanted to make 2 episodes and crammed it into one. I was very disappointed that the CBG didn't wind up getting some sort of cummupance at the end, and they just petered out to do that lame story about Homer and Marge.
 
Exactly. Ned has become the kind of character who would sooner let his children die from illness than give them medicine. Ned has become a really creepy character with little to no heart.

And Apu...dear God what happened to Apu? They just had to make him cheat on his wife, didn't they? Apu was another character with a lot of heart, despite his stereotypes. Now he's just another of Springfield's depraved cretins.


This leads me to another point. Are the writers so out of ideas that they need to re-hash "Homer and Marge" plots that were old hat by the end of the second season? That seems to be the prevailing plotline from the past year or two. Either Homer gets a new job, Marge gets a new job or their marriage is in trouble. Or a combination of the three.

Lame.
 
You forgot the most irritating character definition out of all:

Moe is lonely. We get it.

Darth, you've just really hit it. The Simpsons and South Park are both trash nowadays. I can't even watch the latter anymore, atlhough by now I've just pretty much outgrown that one.

And Family Guy's getting to become as unwatchable as these two are, as well.
 
Oh South Park has gotten just as frustrating, and IMHO is as dull as dishwater. Again, here's a show that's way past it's prime and - like Simpsons - there doesn't really appear to be an end in sight. It trues too hard to be shocking nowadays and always falls back on using the same characters (Kyle, Cartman and Stan's dad) and the exact same plots (Kyle vs Cartmans, secret organizations, juvenile celebrity bashing) over and over and over again.

You can only be so shocking and offensive for a little while before the shtick gets old. And South Park is way past it's expiration date. And I still think the "we don't start episodes until 5 days before they're due to air" process is hurtful to the show. Every so often you get a half-way decent episode, but mainly it's just same old thing. It's gotten to the point that I can predict the direction of any episode just based on a one-sentence plot synopsis. And that's never a good thing.



See this is where you and I differ. Family Guy has it's hits and misses but I still enjoy it immensely. I get more laughs out of a Family Guy episode than I get out of most South Parks and Simpsons. I understand people's complaints about the show and, yeah, the show could use a little improvement. But it hasn't gotten to the point of Simpsons and South Park. If either of those shows end I really wouldn't care much. Family Guy, meanwhile, still has a little life left in it.
 
And DG, don't forget Lisa: The Show ruiner, the preachy one, the "Meg Griffin" type, the girl "that thinks her family are morons", the girl who may have ADD, and the girl who has problems with her weight and everything else that's little.


There's never really anymore Bart centered episodes, it's mainly about Homer, Marge and Lisa. Bart's just been losing his Hell Boy spirit for the past couple years, and Maggie is starting to be in the back burner.. The show was then interesting in the 1990-1997 years as a family/adult show, but it went to be something else in the 1998-2003 years. Then, it was now a Family Guy/South Park like show with so many good characters acting so mean, Homer keeps hurting peoples feelings like Peter Griffin, Bart........he's running out of his Street Smarts and also: I feel bad for him being hated by his family and not Lisa, Maggie is just an extra, Marge is going Lois Griffin on us, Lisa needs a freaking spanking, Moe is like Quagmire, Ralph is slightly retarded (sigh..), Flanders is a religious man that went crazy after Maude died, and the show itself will probably end in 2009, just to say: 20 Years.
 
Many a Simpsons post-season 11 episode. "Homer vs. Dignity," "The Old Man and the Key," "How I Spent my Strummer Vacation," "Marge vs...." etc. spring to mind.
 
Almost every episode after the movie was either dull and stretched out or just bad. Remember how there was a second episode of fighting the Rowdyruff Boys, but all it turned out to be was the boys spitting on them and throwing giant scabs?
 
Feh. IMHO, the Rowdyruff Boys should never have been brought back. Never. When Craig McCracken first released the original "Rowdyruff Boys" episode, he made it clear that he had no intention of ever brining the RRBs back; he realized that they were only good for one episode. The RRBs were only brought back at the request of fans during the show's last season when McCracken was far less involved with the show (Craig clearly stopped caring about The Powerpuff Girls the second Foster's popped into his head). If McCracken had remained at the PPG helm, those gawdawful Rowdyruff Boys' return appearances would have never happened.
 
I have to say, after getting both the first and second season of The Tick, it's pretty painful to watch. Mainly because the thing is so freaking funny, I have stabbing chest pains and can't breathe for 10 minutes at a time, laughing. It's painfully funny.
 
I'm hopping on the musical bandwagon.

To paraphrase Naruto D. Luffy, "Any episode of the Boondocks - Nothing but unfunny racist jokes, pointless swearing, and toilet humor." I barely lasted through the first episode and feel that the time I once had my right ear bit open by a dog was far more entertaining and worthwhile than the 15 minutes I had wasted on trying to watch that poor excuse for a TV show.

Any episode of South Park that focuses on Mrs. Garrison ("Mr. Garrison's Fancy New ******, Go God Go, D-Yikes!") or "Wing"

Pretty much any Tom and Jerry. Too mean spirited.

Transformers: "Desertion of the Dinobots"

There are two episodes of Batman the Animated Series. The first is "Be a Clown," and is arguably the worst of those "kid show" episodes (another being the one with the Penguin), and even worse features Batman making wisecracks, which is almost as in character as all the All-Star stuff. The second is the first episode with the Riddler, "If You're, " and possibly the worst episode of the series. One of the reasons I never liked Batman: TAS as much as the other DCAU was the whole Deus Ex M. factor the show had, and this one pushes it to the extreme. Batman suddenly has a pocket computer built into his glove that is featured in just this episode which he uses to easilly thwart Riddler's revenge plan. May I be the first to call BU!!$*!*!

Fullmetal Alchemist, Blood +, and Death Note.

Ninja Turtles (03) "Exodus"

Any Ducktales episode with Bubba in it.
 
Might I ask what's wrong with Death Note?

Also, I hardly think Batman: TAS used deus ex machina that frequently. Yes it was cheap for that episode, but compare that to JLU's deus ex machina ending, and you'll find a comparison favoring B:TAS.

As for South Park episodes focusing on Mrs. Garrison, I agree, she was hilarious as a man, now she's sick *****.
 
Riddler episodes of B:TAS in general had weird writing, Bruce Timm and co. admitted that in their explanation why they didn't really care for the Riddler (still no excuse to give him the horrendous design in TNBA though...)

On the subject, I'm going to have to go with Pokemon from Johto and onwards. Similar to Inuyasha, it's a case of a once solid anime gone downhill due to repetitive formulatic filler and static personalities, all getting dragged out with little end in sight. It has a few things going for it, mainly new characters (Paul being the main exception to this; c'mon, aren't Pokemon rivals supposed to have, I dunno...humanity?!) but other than that, I just can't bring myself to tune in to this boring show.
 
The Proud Family - This was a great premise at first; a cartoon about a African-American family, but this was later turned to crap cause, like nearly every other family-based cartoon, they made the father into a pariah, hated by his own family and having him to hock a hated product which is the reason I don't watch it anymore.


The First season of The Critic: I love the main character and the movie parodies, but I hate the fact that they never reveled Jay's birth family, they made him into a divorced single man (which quite frankly I'm sick of seeing in animation), not to mention they made his ex-wife into the devil, also I never like his Ted Turner wannabe boss.

Any toon that's lets the bad guys win or focus way to much on a character's selfish behavior or political issues.

Brandy and Mr. Whiskers - this toon went from weird to just plain disgusting.

Superman Brainiac Attacks - this DTV was bad cause it had a lot of bad voice acting not to mention the story was assanine.

Anything with Barbie in the title.

Any toon that has characters that are divorced.
 
I agree wholeheartedly. The nonstop Oscar bashing and abuse was one reason why I stopped watching The Proud Family. (Its' mediocre writing and overused black slang were the other reasons.)



Agree with the second point (I too am quite sick on this aeon flux of single dads, as well as dead, missing or otherwise absentee mothers in TV shows and movies), but the first point never bothered me personally. I didn't need to ever see Jay's birth family depicted on the show; The Critic wasn't about Jay searching for his birth parents. IMHO, if we were meant to see Jay's real parents on the show, the writers wouldn't have made him adopted in the first place.
 
Back
Top