The Debate- The Simpsons VS South Park VS Family Guy

The year is 1989 and revolutions are taking place in East Germany, Poland, Hungary and in the world of television; Matt Groening is about to change animation forever and this revolution will be broadcast etc.

Up until this point, all successful TV animations were aimed at children. Think The Jetsons, The Flintstones, The Looney Tunes and various Hanna-Barbara classics. The Simpsons would be the trail blazer for the animation aimed more at adults with its own brand of political and social messages.

In the twenty-two years since, the genre has exploded. We’ve had Dilbert, The PJs, Futurama, American Dad!, Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill to name but six. But, in terms of longevity, The Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy are the real success stories. So, which one is best?

If we are going on pure quality of output for the longest amount of time, The Simpsons wins hands down. It has been one of the smartest shows on TV, consistently, for over 20 years now and is, arguably, the greatest cultural product television has produced. Its characters are recognisable from LA to London, Bangkok to Basra. The quality of guest-star voice acting talent it has attracted (itself an innovation in animation) is without equal.

However, unquestionably, it has peaked and said peak was well over a decade ago now, probably between seasons 8 and 12, although it has been experiencing something of a renaissance in the last couple of years. In this time, Family Guy and South Park have certainly been funnier and, in the latter case anyway, far cleverer and satirical.

South Park, for my money, started out as a very immature show that was over-reliant on swearing and fart jokes, the stigma from which, it suffered from unfairly for a number of years. From around Season 7, the show seemed to grow up immeasurably; tackling key socio-political topics (from Scientology to sex-ed at schools), successfully satirising them whilst keeping the guilty-pleasure toilet humour.

At the other end of the spectrum (as tackled in a Season 10 episode of South Park) Family Guy does not tend to take on the social commentator role that it’s two rivals do, preferring to go for straight comedy. When it works, it is absolutely glorious, as in evidence from Season 3 to 5 when the show was, by far and away, the funniest of the three shows. However, when it doesn’t work (and, in this observers opinion, it hasn’t worked for three years or so now) it becomes something of a chore to watch. It is arguable that American Dad! has overtaken it in quality in recent years.

Clearly, 500 words is nowhere near enough space to do justice to the relative merits of each of these three very good TV shows (5000 words probably isn’t enough) but a decision must be made else this exercise has been a waste of yours and mine time.

Verdict: For longevity, originality and as it is the only one of the three which I would happily watch any episode of, The Simpsons wins with South Park running a close second and Family Guy lagging behind. As a final thought however, three years ago, I probably would have ranked The Simpsons in last with South Park topping the list; amazing how quickly perspectives can change.

This article also appeared in Issue 56 of Pugwash News