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vovatIs it season premiere time again already? Yes, it is! And the Simpsons episode really wasn't too bad, even if its major themes had essentially already been covered. I liked the beginning, with the emphasis on Comic Book Guy, and the movie part had its amusing moments as well. A few jokes fell kind of flat, like the montage bit (it was kind of funny, but didn't really fit the tone of the show), and others had been done better in earlier episodes (they'll never top the bad editing joke from "Radioactive Man"). I did appreciate that they referenced superheroes from actual comics instead of ones they made up for the show. Hey, maybe the reason the movie went so far over budget was that they had to pay to use the likenesses of both DC and Marvel characters. {g} The ending was weak, but, well, you can make that criticism about pretty much every Simpsons episode from the past several years.
The Cleveland Show was all I expected, but that's because I didn't expect it to be very good. It kind of seemed like Seth MacFarlane was parodying the whole idea of spin-offs, but isn't that an idea with limited potential? When American Dad came out, the main criticism seemed to be that it was a weaker rip-off of Family Guy, and I think that applies even more to the first episode of this show. Not only is there another talking animal, but also another baby who says inappropriate things, another group of three friends for Cleveland to hang around with, and more cutaway gags (which American Dad usually avoids). Maybe it will eventually develop its own identity, but this episode just struck me as a weak FG episode. And you could say much the same thing about the actual FG episode, which had some interesting animation and alternate-universe gags, but too little plot to hold an entire episode together. And while the designs were mostly good, the parodies were rather tepid. They got the LOOK of the Flintstones right, and didn't do such a bad job with the Disney universe, but come on. Hey, the Flintstones say "rock" a lot! Walt Disney was anti-Semitic! Wow, THERE are some things I never really thought about until they were made the subject of satire! :P And I know the Robot Chicken bit was a friendly jibe at Seth Green (who, of course, works on both shows), but "Those shows existed!" is also a pretty valid criticism for some FG gags. As seems to be the usual way for Sunday nights now, American Dad was the best of the night, even if Klaus was underused. The Vietnam War reenactment worked well.
The Cleveland Show was all I expected, but that's because I didn't expect it to be very good. It kind of seemed like Seth MacFarlane was parodying the whole idea of spin-offs, but isn't that an idea with limited potential? When American Dad came out, the main criticism seemed to be that it was a weaker rip-off of Family Guy, and I think that applies even more to the first episode of this show. Not only is there another talking animal, but also another baby who says inappropriate things, another group of three friends for Cleveland to hang around with, and more cutaway gags (which American Dad usually avoids). Maybe it will eventually develop its own identity, but this episode just struck me as a weak FG episode. And you could say much the same thing about the actual FG episode, which had some interesting animation and alternate-universe gags, but too little plot to hold an entire episode together. And while the designs were mostly good, the parodies were rather tepid. They got the LOOK of the Flintstones right, and didn't do such a bad job with the Disney universe, but come on. Hey, the Flintstones say "rock" a lot! Walt Disney was anti-Semitic! Wow, THERE are some things I never really thought about until they were made the subject of satire! :P And I know the Robot Chicken bit was a friendly jibe at Seth Green (who, of course, works on both shows), but "Those shows existed!" is also a pretty valid criticism for some FG gags. As seems to be the usual way for Sunday nights now, American Dad was the best of the night, even if Klaus was underused. The Vietnam War reenactment worked well.
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Date: 2009-09-30 12:53 pm (UTC)Cleveland was crazy boring. I ended up looking at the clock at the half-way point, being shocked that it was only half-over, and then started screwing around on the computer until Family Guy started. I think the bear idea is kinda funny, but Rollo is really annoying. The UPN joke was kinda funny, but I was sorta waiting for them to hang the lampshade on the line about a bunch of white people deciding what black people'd want to watch. Since, um... yeah.
I KINDA liked the Simpsons -- the editing joke didn't work as well as Radioactive Man, just because, well, the Radioactive Man one made sense in the framework of the show; this one, not really; films are shot out of order, sure, but not to that extent where they keep coming back to the same damn thing months at a time.
....and I was tired, so I turned off American Dad and went to bed.
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Date: 2009-09-30 07:17 pm (UTC)I did find the bear in the Cleveland Show pilot kind of amusing, but I don't know how well he'd work out as a regular character. Then again, that's probably true of EVERY new character introduced on that show.
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Date: 2009-09-30 07:45 pm (UTC)Yeah -- the mom and daughter seem too bland to really do much of anything so far. (I don't even remember their names, heh.) Rollo's just kind of annoying and almost seems like... almost stereotypical? But also unlikable. The Redneck is way too easy - hopefully they do something with him. Then there's the bear, and, um, the short frat guy? Yeah. I mean, I guess if you do Family Guy the same way -- the fat guy, the black guy, the perv and the cripple, it doesn't really sound that interesting either, but... well, at least they had memorable lines.