Dear Adult Swim

[yendi]

I think it's awesome that you're taking a lineup already filled with one-rape-joke-per-epiosde-whether-its-needed-or-not* Family Guy reruns and adding a show about and starring Mike Tyson. That's just all kinds of special, especially since I'd already given up on Robot Chicken (a genuinely inventive show until Seth Green decided to go down the same path more often than not a couple of years back). Maybe you could up the ante and add Urotsukidōji‎ to your anime lineup. That would make you oh-so-extra-special.

Of course, in all seriousness, I'll be back for Venture Brothers, but decisions like this do nothing to instill any confidence or inclination to bother with any of the 85 other new shows you've announced.

*Spoiler: it's never actually needed.**

**If you're about to comment with an exception, see the last spoiler***.

***And yes, that includes George Carlin's famous routine. Being brilliant is not the same as being perfect, folks.

Comments

[tru2myart.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way about Robot Chicken. My husband and I both loved that show the first season and then it just went down and down.... I stopped watching it pretty quickly (after the Snuggle bear bit), he kept trying but it even made him sick.

And Family Guy has become a huge disappointment for both of us. I can handle raunchy humor but they took away what was clever about it.

ETA: I don't think I ever shared with you that Eduardo is my very favorite Foster's Home character. I just wanted to throw that out there. :D

[yendi]

Yay, Eduardo! The routine I take my journal name from may be my favorite bit from the entire show.

And yeah, it's totally possible to do raunchy well (see Archer), which is why the laziness of RC and FG is so frustrating.

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

George Carlin's routine is unquestionably perfect.

[yendi]

No, sadly, it's not. He starts with some valid point -- it certainly possible, theoretically, to find humor in any situation. But he fails to do so. and confuses the "you shouldn't" of "because it's mean-spirited, aims down instead of up, and adds no value" with the "you shouldn't" of "because the government doesn't like it and/or it's transgressive and actually could change society for the better."

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

Chris Rock makes the same point. "Ill joke about throwing an old lady down the stairs." I agree with both of em.

[yendi]

And Rock was actually funny in that instance. Again, see the first spoiler.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

Jon Stewart did a recent brilliant piece of political comedy which nonetheless ended in a (totally unneeded, of course) rape joke. So what I was originally going to pass on to others as "this is brilliant, watch this" political comedy about an issue entirely unrelated to rape in any way suddenly became "I'm going to pretend I never saw this because this is not only not funny anymore, it's totally not OK."

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I have heard it suggested that Ever Mainard's routine is the only funny rape joke there is, because it's about the experience of rape culture, not about rape itself: