Cartoons that give away the humor

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kburg2516

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You what the one thing I notice in most modern cartoons today? Its the humor, not that its good it all but however the bad thing about it is that gives it away the joke in one certain moment. And in my opinion that takes the fun out of it. I'll name a few...


Class of 3000- Now in one of the episodes one of the characters commented on a hot teacher, and she was moving in slow motion. But however this certain character mentioned that a fan was on. And in another one a dumb character mentions she should've said that in her head.

Johnny test-This one has the word "Given away humor" written all over it.

Now am I the only one on here that dislikes cartoons giving away certain humor? Because that just ruins it.
 
Family Guy does this all the time. Just saying the line "This is more pointless than the time I played Marco Polo with Helen Keller!" pretty much is a punchline, you don't need to follow that with a 40-second cutaway of Stewie in a pool paddling around in circles saying "Marco...Marco...Marco..." over and over while Helen Keller stands in a corner just staring blankly ahead. Far too often, the cutaway gags are completely robbed of whatever mild surprise value they might have because the characters pretty much underline exactly that the punchline is going to be.
 
Speaking of that, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. It's bad enough that each skit was pretty much one-note, but did they really need to flash a title that explains the joke before the skit even started?
 
Especially when it goes in another direction, like when Peter says, "that's what they said about Benjamin Disraeli." Then they cutaway to that guy and he says, "you don't even know who I am."
 
That is the gag joke format South Park "Cartoon Wars" pointed out



Yeah, if you are a little kid and can't visualize it yourself



That is the exception where it is ok to cut away like that.
 
Whats more entertaining...seeing stewie swimming around a pool saying marco over and over while helen keller stands blankly in the corner...or seeing stewie standing in the kitchen saying that joke?
 
Kinda the whole point of giving away its humor. Shows that don't expect you to understand it, and not baby you into thinking "oh, that must be funny, they did a cut away that was stupid, but somehow fit into the previously unrelated line". It is the same exact thing as a laugh track. They provide the cut away to show you something was meant to be funny.

A show shouldn't have to use such rudamentary comedy, the show should make you laugh without any of that. This is kinda what the Cartoon Wars episodes of South Park showed.
 
The Flinstones and classic Scooby-Doo. Laughtrack. 'Nuff said.

Agreed on Family Guy, and some moments in newer The Simpsons episodes, notably Milhouse tossing the frisbee and Ralph's "Duck! Duck! Duck!"

Excel Saga is another good example. Way too fast-paced.
 
The clever cutaways are few and far between sadly. Moments like the one where Stewie assumes he's setting up a cutaway but isn't or a random cutaway early on that becomes relavent later. Earlier cutaways worked well because they could be simple and not give away the joke e.g.:

Brian: "Face it, Peter, you're not the best liar"

*cutaway to Peter in a lift with one other guy. Peter farts and the guy notices*

Peter: "It was you!"

Not the greatest joke ever but it's funny and doesn't spell the joke out for you. More of that again and the cutaways would be funny again, not just the writers holding your hand as they lead you into toilet humour.
 
Not to be rude, but how does being fast paced equal the cartoon spelling out the jokes for the audience? Yeah, another example would be in "The King is Dead" when Lois said Einstein worked in the patent office. She doesn't say, "Too many people pass off others' work as their own." to give away the punchline of the cutaway.
 
Or when Stewie says, "I'll do to you what I did to John Lennon..." which cuts away to a scene that is not what you expected at all. Stuff like that is clever.

The holding hand thing is absolutely bothersome and I hate when cartoons do that. One of my main issues with that though involves more of hinting that a couple is canon in the least subtle way possible. Wow, way to let the audience come up with their own theories, I mean seriously. Example of this would be TDI with how obvious it was that Duncan and Courtney were going to get together. Yeah, might as well have put it in neon lights while they were at it...

At the moment I don't have any examples of jokes though, but I'm sure I have some good ones.


 
Family Guy telling jokes structure:

1. We are about to tell a joke, this is what it's about.
2. Joke
3. We just told you a joke, it was this.

As with the Simpsons, I hate it when a character has to after 10 seconds repeat part of the joke, it's annoying especially when the joke's not funny.
 
Excel Saga practically rams its jokes in your face like this. I used to like it, but not anymore. I mean, the idea of a low-budget crime organization sounds funny, but it's the way they present it.

(Though I still can't help but feel for poor Pedro...)
 
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