So, Family Guy's very own Cleveland Brown now has his very own show with a much more awesome theme song.
My thoughts on Family Guy are substantially negative at this point. But the last thing I would possibly suggest would be giving Cleveland his own show. That'd be like giving Maggie Simpson her own show.
Or Flanders.
I'm saying it's a bad idea, you see.
Point is, having watched the first ten episodes of The Cleveland Show, I can safely say that it's better than Family Guy.
And worse than Family Guy.
...Bear with me.
Family Guy's problem now is that it's not a TV show, it's 22 jokes shoved together, badly. Storyline is irrelevant.
In that sense, The Cleveland Show is infinitely superior. Cleveland's family actually has issues and storylines actually progress, even if Cleveland has become substantially more of a dislikable idiot since leaving Family Guy.
However, Family Guy's cutaways, as infuriating as they are, are often pretty funny, as much as I hate to admit it.
This is where Cleveland Show fails - it's rarely funny, although there are some occasional home run jokes.
This makes Cleveland Show the superior programme in this writer's humble opinion, but it still has a few problems.
For one thing, Cleveland Show's premise is essentially Family Guy, but black. And with a bear instead of a dog as his best friend.
Either way, why I keep watching it is beyond me. I must suffer from quite extreme boredom.
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
24 March 2010
26 January 2010
Outstanding American visual media
I'm going to be positive about something today.
I feel like I've been negative for a while, so I'm going to talk about nice happy, shiny things.
Today's nice, happy, shiny thing is Little Miss Sunshine.
A 2007 film with an all-star cast including Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear, it follows a disfunctional family road-tripping across America to take their youngest girl to compete in a child's beauty pageant.
That plot summary reads like it would be horrifying, and between Carell and Kinnear there have been some truly awful films.
But Little Miss Sunshine is quite unlike the majority of the films I've seen in my life.
Every member of the family, from Carell's suicidal professor to Kinnear's relentless self-help guru has a fully-rounded character.
You can tell where they're coming from even if you don't agree with it (or rather, even if you don't agree with Kinnear, because it's him you'll hate).
The best character by far is the grandfather, played by Alan Arkin, who as well as delivering some truly grand-slam bits of dialogue ("I still have Nazi bullets in my ass!") is genuinely likable despite snorting heroin in his spare time.
It also never goes quite where you expect it to, despite how easy it would be for it to. I won't say any more lest I spoil the rest of the film.
But what truly makes this movie great is that it's understated.
Understated television and film is rare in America. This isn't necessarily a fault of the audience, as the executives have always been pandering to the lowest common denominators.
Little Miss Sunshine is funny without being slapstick or out and out farce, the comedy just bubbles under the surface. The characters don't leave gaps in the dialogue for you to laugh. And it doesn't talk down to you.
Another American production which should be praised for how understated is The Wire.
Charlie Brooker reckons it's the best TV show ever made and similar praise was lavished on it by The Chris Mayer Experience.
If that's not enough, here I am again telling you how great it is.
Although not a comedy, the characters in The Wire again all have motivations and reasoning that makes even the ones you hate a little bit likable.
Little Miss Sunshine, The Wire; America could do with more TV shows and films like this.
I feel like I've been negative for a while, so I'm going to talk about nice happy, shiny things.
Today's nice, happy, shiny thing is Little Miss Sunshine.
A 2007 film with an all-star cast including Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear, it follows a disfunctional family road-tripping across America to take their youngest girl to compete in a child's beauty pageant.
That plot summary reads like it would be horrifying, and between Carell and Kinnear there have been some truly awful films.
But Little Miss Sunshine is quite unlike the majority of the films I've seen in my life.
Every member of the family, from Carell's suicidal professor to Kinnear's relentless self-help guru has a fully-rounded character.
You can tell where they're coming from even if you don't agree with it (or rather, even if you don't agree with Kinnear, because it's him you'll hate).
The best character by far is the grandfather, played by Alan Arkin, who as well as delivering some truly grand-slam bits of dialogue ("I still have Nazi bullets in my ass!") is genuinely likable despite snorting heroin in his spare time.
It also never goes quite where you expect it to, despite how easy it would be for it to. I won't say any more lest I spoil the rest of the film.
But what truly makes this movie great is that it's understated.
Understated television and film is rare in America. This isn't necessarily a fault of the audience, as the executives have always been pandering to the lowest common denominators.
Little Miss Sunshine is funny without being slapstick or out and out farce, the comedy just bubbles under the surface. The characters don't leave gaps in the dialogue for you to laugh. And it doesn't talk down to you.
Another American production which should be praised for how understated is The Wire.
Charlie Brooker reckons it's the best TV show ever made and similar praise was lavished on it by The Chris Mayer Experience.
If that's not enough, here I am again telling you how great it is.
Although not a comedy, the characters in The Wire again all have motivations and reasoning that makes even the ones you hate a little bit likable.
Little Miss Sunshine, The Wire; America could do with more TV shows and films like this.
2 January 2010
A short musing upon animé
Japanese culture has had a giant impact on Western culture lately.
I'm not sure why this is. Maybe the arrival of Pokémon and its accompanying television series kicked the door in for animé in general.
Either way, you can't walk down the streets nowadays without seeing someone dressed like they think they're a Japanese animé character.
It wasn't such a problem a few years ago when this was more of a niche thing, and when it was only gamers going to conventions who dressed like Final Fantasy characters.
But these days everyone's into it. And again, this isn't really a problem either.
Trends, be they idiotic or not, come and go and it's not the fault of the few originals that the trends happen.
Just ask Ian Mackaye, who basically invented straight-edge and emo by accident and has spent the ensuing twenty-odd years distancing himself from it.
The thing I dislike about it is how everybody seems to be so completely okay with what goes on in the TV shows and films that most of these people love.
These shows are unrelentingly bizarre and yet nobody seems to notice this.
Down to the very basic elements of Japanese animation, there are things that make no sense to us, like the way they constantly beat each other over the head with fans. I for one don't think a fan would hurt that much, but what do I know.
There's the fact that every single boy looks like a girl. Or at least, they certainly don't look like boys.
And the unsettling fact that every girl is ridiculously proportioned, disturbingly young yet also pubescent, and wearing preposterously revealing clothing.
But it's not even all of that that I'm talking about, it's the weirdness that goes one step further than that.
It's the Cat Bus in (I think) My Neighbour Totero.
It's the weird tree creature projectile vomiting in a film that I think was Spirited Away, but I forget.
I saw on (I think) Cowboy Bebop, blood dripping downwards slowly out of a giant hanging eyeball.
Pokémon, which consists of tiny monsters living in balls that you keep in your pocket, is practically USUAL next to that!
And I could handle all this weirdness were it not for the fact that all of these things just whistle by and animé fans don't react. They don't say 'that was totally weird, but it was awesome nonetheless.' They just accept it.
So stop it. Grr.
I'm not sure why this is. Maybe the arrival of Pokémon and its accompanying television series kicked the door in for animé in general.
Either way, you can't walk down the streets nowadays without seeing someone dressed like they think they're a Japanese animé character.
It wasn't such a problem a few years ago when this was more of a niche thing, and when it was only gamers going to conventions who dressed like Final Fantasy characters.
But these days everyone's into it. And again, this isn't really a problem either.
Trends, be they idiotic or not, come and go and it's not the fault of the few originals that the trends happen.
Just ask Ian Mackaye, who basically invented straight-edge and emo by accident and has spent the ensuing twenty-odd years distancing himself from it.
The thing I dislike about it is how everybody seems to be so completely okay with what goes on in the TV shows and films that most of these people love.
These shows are unrelentingly bizarre and yet nobody seems to notice this.
Down to the very basic elements of Japanese animation, there are things that make no sense to us, like the way they constantly beat each other over the head with fans. I for one don't think a fan would hurt that much, but what do I know.
There's the fact that every single boy looks like a girl. Or at least, they certainly don't look like boys.
And the unsettling fact that every girl is ridiculously proportioned, disturbingly young yet also pubescent, and wearing preposterously revealing clothing.
But it's not even all of that that I'm talking about, it's the weirdness that goes one step further than that.
It's the Cat Bus in (I think) My Neighbour Totero.
It's the weird tree creature projectile vomiting in a film that I think was Spirited Away, but I forget.
I saw on (I think) Cowboy Bebop, blood dripping downwards slowly out of a giant hanging eyeball.
Pokémon, which consists of tiny monsters living in balls that you keep in your pocket, is practically USUAL next to that!
And I could handle all this weirdness were it not for the fact that all of these things just whistle by and animé fans don't react. They don't say 'that was totally weird, but it was awesome nonetheless.' They just accept it.
So stop it. Grr.
30 December 2009
Why I hate Scrubs
Scrubs is a half-decent little TV show with an often surreal sense of humour, and I used to like it a lot.
At least, I used to like the first three or four seasons a lot, before it started to go abruptly downhill.
But now, a few episodes (mostly early ones) aside, I can't stand it. Why is that, you ask? Two characters.
Elliot Reed and John Dorian.
Let's start with Elliot. She is a giant slag.
No, really. She seems to have some kind of phony morality in the TV show, but she is a slag.
In the very first episode of the show, she sexually manipulates JD in order to get ahead, something she repeats in the fourth season to her own detriment. The show seems to think we should be rooting for her in this situation, but it's her own stupid fault.
In the third season, meanwhile, while in a long-distance relationship with Sean (who gets utterly screwed over by her once before as well, by the way, and doesn't deserve it either time) she sleeps with JD, before immediately hooking up with Sean again.
She then has the nerve to take the moral high ground on JD when he feels that, you know, having sex with him might have been a sign that she likes him or something like that.
Which brings us to JD. JD is an IDIOT. An unlikable, annoying, immature idiot who says stupid things, does horrible things to people and is generally a jerk.
It'd take me far too long to list them all here, but I may as well give a few examples.
He constantly says incredibly insulting things to people, usually his closest friends ("You're supposed to struggle, not me" to Elliot in series four).
He nails a widow AT HER HUSBAND'S FUNERAL. I don't care how long he was in a coma or how good an emotional state she claims to be in... HER HUSBAND JUST DIED. You could at least wait until you got home for goodness sake, because I'd say she may not be in the sanest state of mind.
He is so weak emotionally that he can't even break up with someone and so needy that he'll just cling onto anybody who throws him even a second glance.
With these two the focal point of the show - along with Turk, who to be fair I adore - I just can't stand to watch it any more. JD constantly makes the wrong decisions when it's so easy to see what he should do (and unlike in say, Peep Show, it's not entertaining) and Elliot is just a slag still.
So, forget you Scrubs.
At least, I used to like the first three or four seasons a lot, before it started to go abruptly downhill.
But now, a few episodes (mostly early ones) aside, I can't stand it. Why is that, you ask? Two characters.
Elliot Reed and John Dorian.
Let's start with Elliot. She is a giant slag.
No, really. She seems to have some kind of phony morality in the TV show, but she is a slag.
In the very first episode of the show, she sexually manipulates JD in order to get ahead, something she repeats in the fourth season to her own detriment. The show seems to think we should be rooting for her in this situation, but it's her own stupid fault.
In the third season, meanwhile, while in a long-distance relationship with Sean (who gets utterly screwed over by her once before as well, by the way, and doesn't deserve it either time) she sleeps with JD, before immediately hooking up with Sean again.
She then has the nerve to take the moral high ground on JD when he feels that, you know, having sex with him might have been a sign that she likes him or something like that.
Which brings us to JD. JD is an IDIOT. An unlikable, annoying, immature idiot who says stupid things, does horrible things to people and is generally a jerk.
It'd take me far too long to list them all here, but I may as well give a few examples.
He constantly says incredibly insulting things to people, usually his closest friends ("You're supposed to struggle, not me" to Elliot in series four).
He nails a widow AT HER HUSBAND'S FUNERAL. I don't care how long he was in a coma or how good an emotional state she claims to be in... HER HUSBAND JUST DIED. You could at least wait until you got home for goodness sake, because I'd say she may not be in the sanest state of mind.
He is so weak emotionally that he can't even break up with someone and so needy that he'll just cling onto anybody who throws him even a second glance.
With these two the focal point of the show - along with Turk, who to be fair I adore - I just can't stand to watch it any more. JD constantly makes the wrong decisions when it's so easy to see what he should do (and unlike in say, Peep Show, it's not entertaining) and Elliot is just a slag still.
So, forget you Scrubs.
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