It’s the sheer laziness and cynical nature of US comedies which sucks - develop a formula and keep shitting out episodes until there are enough for syndication. That’s it. The actual show itself is just 20 minutes of meaningless, throwaway nothing with some jokes. Occasionally a show will try something different but 90+% of them are just this until cancellation or syndication.
hey, i liked friends
Me with American Dad et al. They’re just soul-crushingly mean-spirited.
I mean if you understand that they’re satire, then they can be funny.
That being said American dad past season 9 and Family Guy past season 7 have severely declined in quality to the point where they’re not funny to me anymore.
I’ve noticed that with Family Guy in particular, the writers of that really have it in for women.
Wait, WHAT. I thought the likes of Seth MacFarlane were pretty progressive. But I also live a sheltered life. ELI5 please lol
Louis Griffin in particular is pretty bad, but the female characters are very one dimensional, and often portrayed as being very shallow and annoying, whereas the male characters are much more fleshed out and three dimensional.
I’d bet money Seth Mcfarlane doesn’t have a good relationship with his mother.
Thank you for telling me politely
Friends is a funny show. But I’ll say that after season 5, it got progressively less and less funny.
Idk why you’re being downvoted, you’re right. The shows first few seasons were great because the humor felt original and the chemistry between the characters felt organic.
I felt like all of the characters declined. Chandler’s sarcasm became more and more forced. Ross getting divorced again and again got repetitive, I also didn’t like how they handled him having a kid. Joey’s character was lobotomized and he went from being a funny womanizer to being a child in an adult’s body. The girls stayed more consistent, but I felt like Phoebe’s shtick kind of wore off and became annoying. I also hate the ending.
I think the first half of friends is one of the best sitcom products that American TV has produced, but the second half is just mediocre.
Absolutely. I think everyone became one dimensional. And you’re right, they all had great chemistry in the first seasons.
I also don’t know what people are talking about when they call the humor “dated”. I don’t think it’s dated. It’s just that different people find different things funny. I mean, who can forget “PI-VOT” and then “I’d like to return this couch. I’m not completely satisfied with it” - says Ross as he returns a mutual couch, that’s been severed in two
Chandler’s dad is pretty dated
My face when someone asks if I have watched Game Of Thrones (which hearing about it is the extend of the knowledge I have).
I’m not a fantasy person, but I had a gf who was a HUGE GoT fan. She whined enough to the point I watched it with her.
I still don’t like it.
I like tits and peter dinklage. It checked some boxes for me.
Imagine if Peter Dinklage got implants. You’d be in heaven.
Same experience here, my wife was obsessed with it and badgered me mercilessly until I finally sat down and watched… I lasted about 5 minutes before I welped and slapped both my thighs as I got up to play games
I tried to watch it. Couldn’t do it.
It’s not for everybody and it’s certainly not nuanced or pointed humor at all, but it’s funny and it holds up.
I disagree. I grew up watching reruns and I liked it. Recently I tried watching it, and the jokes did not hold up. I’d argue that Seinfeld and Fraiser held up better. But to each their own.
To me the issue with Seinfeld is Seinfeld himself. He’s just a very bad actor and he sticks out like a sore thumb with the other characters. Watching his deadpan face in every episode kills the mood for me.
pointed humor
Nipples did augment the jokes.
Some episodes have aged excellently. That one where Phoebe dates a cop, who is definitely giving off white supremacist vibes, and Chandler is going around at every opportunity reminding everyone in absolute terror: “he has a gun!”
Me watching any sitcom
I think sitcoms that don’t rely on laughing tracks (Scrubs, Malcolm, Better Off Ted, etc.) are genuinely funny. Else it’s give lor take. I found HIMYM really funny but not Friends.
I was subjected to an endless barrage of Full House reruns… My sister was obsessed. Oh god… Oh… Just oh god.
Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking but I feel the Inbetweeners and Fresh Meat still hold up. The former one especially, if anyone wants to know what it was like growing up as a British teen in the '00s it’s basically 100% accurate.
Rewatching Malcolm in the middle right now and shit is hilarious
It’s a classic in our house. It never disappoints!
Hal’s roller skating dance routine for Malcolm lives rent-free in my head.
I like the episode where Dewey is addicted to cigarettes and Hal relapses on coffee because of it
Dewey smoking 2 packs a day lol
Also Reese outrunning the cops in his retry driving test and driving perfectly to the rules while Sum 41 is blasting then getting beat up by the cops but gets his license
With background laugh
Me with Seinfeld.
I was gonna say, I’m not judging people who like Friends, because I like Seinfeld…
the liquid hearty meal will not be given to you
In the late 90’s UK it was a huge show, everyone really liked it, it was one of the first binge serials I can remember. I’ve not watched it for 25 years, maybe worth revisiting, although reading through the comments, seems it hasn’t aged well. It’s always sunny in Philadelphia is probably a better re-watch these days, it’s like extreme (anti) Friends on crack.
Rewatched over the COVID period. Was still entertaining. The pacing is odd though when you binch watch, their relationships / life events last a few episodes (so it seems like only a few days have passed), whereas when it was a weekly event it seemed like they lasted months.
IASIP is more like Seinfeld on meth.
Look, no one TOLD you life was gonna be this way…
clapclapclapclap
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke,
You smell, you’re pathetic,
You shithead, you-*gets dragged away from song, kicking and screaming*
Still funny.
Deeply unfunny show full if unrelatable, unlikable characters.
Most of the shows is just laughing sound in the back for comedy
It was sorta funny back then, at the time we didn’t have nearly as much selection of niche stuff as we do now. If you stayed up late you could catch Beavis and Butthead and that was about it.
It was the thing you watched with your parents.
Now it just comes across like it’s a cleaned up comment section of a mainstream social media site. The stuff they hope to portray themselves as.
I Don’t like american humor i think
