The mantees aren't very funny

My officemate and I have an ongoing feud. Let's call him Chris T. No, that's too obvious, let's say C. Taylor. He maintains that Family Guy is far superior to Futurama, and furthermore that Futurama makes him angry when it comes on.

Well, clearly my officemate is an idiot. Differences of opinion are one thing, but this is just sheer idiocy. But it raises an interesting question, because both of these shows got cancelled by Fox around the same time, and both are back. FG has been back a while, and let's face it, quite funny. Futurama, on the other hand, is coming back with 3 direct to dvd movies, which will be chopped up into 15 episodes and run on Comedy Central. But whatever, it's coming back.

So how do you get a series you love back? Well, it helps if the series is actually good and/or has a following. In the case of FG, this was demonstrated by the tremendous DVD sales. But for Futurama, I'm not positive how it happened. Yeah, lots of letters and petitions helped I'm sure. But Futurama got the shaft from Fox - instead of the 8:30/7:30 post-simpsons timeslot that was given to King Of The Hill, they got the 7:30/6:30 lead-in, meaning they got cancelled everytime a football game went long. Which was every week. So new episodes never made it out, and they couldn't find an audience. Which makes it even more remarkable that they're back.

Unregardless, I feel like there's a rivalry between these shows (or at least between their core audiences). People seem to feel strongly one way or the other, but I don't know why. FG is devoted to random inanity, while F is witty, subtle, and textured in story. Both of them seem to have a pretty good grasp of their place in television and their role in popular culture, but that's not enough.

I do wonder how rewatchability might affect the rivalry. I don't mean how much someone who originally hated one show hates it after seeing it several time, I mean what is the dropoff in enjoyment for the proponents. Here I think F has the clear edge, as FG relies too much on shock value and randomness for its humor. That wears thin a lot faster than integrated character arcs where the jokes are based on situated humor.

Still, kudos to Adult Swim for getting both of them back. I think we can all agree that no matter where you come down on the F/FG debate, AS is pretty spectacularly awesome. Except for that "Tim & Eric Awesome Show" tripe. Getting a 10th grader to direct your show isn't funny, it sucks. Deal with it.