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All sitcom dads being fat, slobbish and painfully stupid and unaware of anything to do with housework, children, or common sense but somehow they all have long-suffering yet weirdly hot wives who just roll their eyes and somehow don't file for divorce.
The Simpsons
King of Queens
George Lopez's show
According to Jim (Belushi)
Last man standing (Tim Allen)
Home improvement (Again Tim Allen)
Everybody loves Raymond
The entire premise of every one of these shows is HAHAHA DADS ARE IDIOTS HA HAHA
You forgot Married with Children which was one of the first
Absolutely, one of the first and best examples.
I have to admit though, I do actually love that show haha
the terrible transphobic storyline in arrested development
Wait, which one?
Any sort of "my husband/wife/spouse is lazy/a nag/useless" or from the opposite perspective "I'm lazy/a nag/useless, I'm so lucky my husband/wife/spouse is a sucker and puts up with my bumbling incompetence".
Yet somehow I still love Married with Children.
It works in that show because the entire family are losers, and they all get mocked by all the others, regularly.
True equality, lol.
I think Married With Children has managed to come through unscathed because of Ed O'Neil and who he is as a person. He's so much the opposite of Al Bundy and has always been very open about that. The show as a result falls into that same category as South Park or All in the Family; We understand that the jokes are meant to be satire via absurdity; It's so over the top and the actor is so different in real life that we just get it.
Compare that to something like Home Improvement, where we know that the humour isn't meant to be absurdist, and we know that Tim Allen really is a douche.
Pretty much every segment of Jerry's stand up routine in Seinfeld. I have no idea how that man became a famous comedian.
Because that shit was actually funny 35 to 40 years ago. It just didnβt age well.
Tastes change.
His stand-up was bad back then too
I don't find Jerry funny, like at all. I like Costanza but I adore Kramer
Jerry was a straight guy in the show, is funny because he is not funny. He's just a normal guy with a few good observations
He's there to anchor the show
How rude they are to Jerry in Parks & Rec. Doing a rewatch of it now and wow it is way worse than I remembered, and starts way earlier. It's not a flanderisation thing, there was a season 2 joke that made me have to pause and go online just to see how many other people felt the same way as me.
I find it funny because of the sheer absurdity of it. There's absolutely no reason to dislike Jerry. He affable and unassuming, a good family man and just generally a good guy. Yet everyone inexplicably hates him, even Chris. It's makes absolutely no sense and that disconnect is what makes it funny to me.
If they hated him for a reason it would be mean spirited. Instead, it's just over the top silly and fits in with the humor of the show.
The bit where Leslie throws his painting in the lake is one of my favorite moments. It's just so exorbitantly stupid that it makes me laugh.
Personally I don't have as much of an issue with when they're poking fun at him per se, but when they denegrate or damage things he has clearly worked hard on and put a lot of passion into, that's crossing a line for me. It becomes incredibly mean-spirited.
There are two examples in this compilation video. One at the linked time, and another at 6:33. Especially with how happy he is to see Leslie in the second clip until she destroys his art. It's honestly heart-breaking. The pie to the face that came a little bit before that was also hard to watch and really felt mean. Dunno if that's because of how cold and calculated it was (vs the more usual off-the-cuff comments), or because it was a physical act rather than verbal, or something else. But I didn't like it.
It feels cringe (to me) cause these type of people are often bullied in real life work places, again with no real reason.
It's the opposite of the Lil' Sebastian thing, where there's that horse that everyone idolizes for no discernible reason. Although with that, there's the one character who doesn't understand why they do that, so maybe that's what the Jerry thing needed? Or perhaps that would have made it even sadder lol.
"no discernible reason"!? I would murder everyone in this room to bring Lil Sebastian back for 5 minutes.
hi ron
Agreed. The only redeeming thing I can give the writers credit for is that they gave him an amazing family life. Even though he is the office punching bag, he is much more fulfilled outside of work than any other character is. That, and he also does love his job.
It will be legen... wait for it... dary!
I couldn't agree more. The idea seemed to have been "Hey, lets take a joke that was just luke warm at best to begin with, and then over use it in an attempt to wring every single spec of amusement out of it until our audience gets physically sick when they hear it"
Still a fun show though!
It is kinda brilliant though, the way they set it up.
If you donβt like the joke, you can always fall back to the meta level: this is a 40-something dad recalling how dumb and cringe-worthy he and his friends were in their 20s.
Yeah it's not really supposed to be "funny". It's just Barney being corny because that's who the character is. (When he's not being a sociopath with women.)
I hate how in Disney family sitcoms as well as some cartoons, there's always the stock dumb kid that gives the majority of the humor, and it's humor that gets old.
And they get dumber and dumber by every season
One character I actually really like because he makes fun of the trope (at least in one episode), is Barry from American Dad!
Here's the opposite; a joke that I love from a sitcom I hate: "Secret elixir, huh? Well, I'm usually more of a bourbon guy, but when push comes to shove I don't know what the hell's in that either." - Charlie Harper, "Two and a Half Men"
Some of the Scrubs jokes aged badly. I can't remember any specifically, but there was some anti-gay humor and stuff like that. The show I still appreciated enough to get through a rewatch recently and still mostly enjoyed, but some of the individual jokes were hard to sit through. Wish I could remember one lol.
Any kind of overt and heavily pushed version of their stereotyped personality is the joke.
I am completely done with the "male character says something chauvanistic, female character slaps, that's the joke."
Futurama did it quite a lot, Leela hit Fry a lot, Amy hit him a few times. I done with shows that do that. I see that joke happen again I'll stop the playback right then and there and cancel whatever service I'm watching it on.
On arrested development I skip the story arc of episodes related to Maeby tricking people in to thinking her mom is trans so they can be awful to her.
There is a lot of casual transphobia that was common at the time, but I just can't fucking stand those scenes.
Isn't she just doing that to try and stop Steve Holt from being attracted to her mum instead of to her?
I don't think she was trying to get people to be nasty to her particularly, just trying to distract Steve.
Maeby: And the worst part is he thinks heβs passing.
Yes, her motivation was make Steve Holt not interested but fundamentally the joke is that Steve wouldn't be attracted to trans woman, which is what happens. Which honestly makes the whole joke worse.
And even if you don't care about that, Maeby's motivation doesn't matter because she still uses transphobia as a way to harass Lindsey behind her back.
I honestly find the whole thing so upsetting and not even remotely funny.