South Park Versus Family Guy
Respect and Rivalry in the World of Animated Comedy
Is Family Guy unimaginative? Is South Park too preachy? Matt Stone and Trey Parker take aim at Seth McFarland and Family Guy in their new DVD release Imaginationland.
‘Imaginationland’, a three part episode from ‘South Park’s’ eleventh season was just released on DVD. This “director’s cut” featured scenes that were not seen on television, including an opening to Part III which noted, at the end, that ‘Star Wars’ Parodies were unimaginative. This is the second time that ‘South Park’ creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have taken aim at ‘Family Guy’ although this is nowhere near as big an attack as that made in the show’s tenth season when the two part episode, ‘Cartoon Wars’ called out ‘Family Guy’ as a mindless string of interchangeable gags.
It's a Matter of Respect
The episodes hypothesized that the ‘Family Guy’ writers were in fact manatees that put idea balls containing pop culture references and other key points together to create gags. While Stone and Parker admit that the show is funny and appreciated by millions of fans they say they “just don’t respect it from a writing standpoint.” ‘Family Guy’ like ‘South Park’ makes use of numerous pop culture references. However, ‘South Park’ takes these references to a relevant point while ‘Family Guy’ uses them like little joke bombs that trigger a laugh and disappear.
What's the Point?
At the end of the day ‘Family Guy’ just seems empty because it works on the surface level only. The stories often go in circles and almost never work towards a central point or theme. ‘South Park’, on the other hand, forces the viewer, for the most part, to take things to another level - to reconcile crude, sometimes distasteful humor with an intelligent, thought provoking point. It’s a brilliant, titillating combination – the desire to recoil coupled with the inspiration to think further on an issue.
Tonsil Trouble
Take for example, ‘Tonsil Trouble’ in which Cartman, perhaps the most infamous of 'South Park's' characters, goes in for a routine tonsillectomy and ends up contracting the HIV virus from a blood transfusion. If the idea of HIV as the centerpiece of an animated comedy was not enough to make some people cringe, things are pushed even farther when Cartman infects Kyle with the virus as revenge. No doubt there were some viewers who turned the episode off, others who sat mouth-agape the entire half hour and still others who laughed hysterically. The episode commented on the ‘in’ and ‘out’ nature of diseases. Characters comment on HIV as ‘retro’ and go on to say that cancer is all the rage now. It is a relevant and thought provoking point, one that would have been lost in the business as usual, gag machine that is ‘Family Guy’.
Is South Park too Preachy?
After watching a single episode of ‘South Park’ it becomes startlingly clear that the show is doing something that no other animated show is doing right now, least of all, ‘Family Guy’. Despite this, some find ‘South Park’ to be too preachy and it is a point that its creators have acknowledged, suggesting in DVD commentary that there came a point where they had to step back and stop responding to everything via the show. They could not always be making intelligent social commentary - and that is why viewers can tune in one week for an allegory of Hurricane Katrina and another week for a contest to see who can take the biggest crap.
South Park on Top
Episodes in the show’s first few seasons dealt with Cartman getting an anal probe and fictional creatures like Scuzzlebut. When you view these episodes next to more recent fare such as ‘Best Friends Forever’, an Emmy winning episode alluding to the Terry Schiavo debate, it scarcely seems like the same show. It is this idea of growth and change that makes ‘South Park’ the superior show – the idea that the viewer is going somewhere instead of spinning their wheels, oblivious to anything below the obvious level.
