I dunno why you'd fit Avatar in there, since it's a rather different genre from the majority of those shows (Battlefield Earth notwithstanding). South Park, though, probably belongs somewhere up high. How high, I cannot say with much confidence, having not seen all of the shows mentioned (or rather, having seen them, but not all episodes of them, and in Dinosaurs' case not having seen it since I was wery old), but I'm just getting into it now and it is good, if quite tasteless at times.

Is Dinosaurs that old show were they had the pink baby? I hated that show. And I like American Dad.

All I have to say is:

Even the worst of anime is better than the greatest live-action series...except for porn. 😛 And even hentai > porn...unless porn = live, then live porn > hentai > reg. porn. That is all. :3

I will disagree vehemently with Hero, if only for my hatred of like 90% of anime and my love for prime-time dramedies (Scrubs, The Office, et al.)... Oh, and real actual women rather than drawn likenesses.

Regarding the list, I demand that you torrent every single episode of Venture Bros. posthaste, because it really is a brilliantly-written show and with Adult Swim's completely insane rerun schedule for shows (seriously, there's like no pattern to it) you'll have a tough time seeing the episodes chronologically, which is a definite must.

NOT THE MAMA!

*bonks Nelstone with a pot*

~Tobe

I'm with Bat here. Japanese Storytelling usually involves making up the EPIC story as you go along, so a show which starts off as a cute examination into a little robot who buys panties in a hilarious fashion becomes OMG! Matrix Robots! World in peril! HUGE ROOFTOP BATTLE!

Or perhaps "Ok... so we have badguys, but have no idea who they're trying to kill... let's have them blow up Earth"

Or "Let's switch protagonists!!!"

and such forth.

The less said about crack endings the better. "Hell is WWII Earth" my arse.

I'd much rather a dramady, like Scrubs.

Whats wrong with Anime? IN AMINE YOU CAN DO WHAT EVER YOU WANT THAY DONT COMPLAINE **

** i only hate porly drawn Anime

Speaking of anime, is there gonna be a Fullmetal Alchemist box set anytime soon? I don't feel like shelling out anywhere from $250-350 for the whole series on the individual DVD releases, no matter how much I loved the show.

Metalocalypse > Prime Simpsons.

I'd say COPS = Metalocalypse, but i don't think it's fits into the "funny sticoms" theme.

I just noticed this list has a distinct lack of Boondocks. Fix that.

I would but AS likes to screw up their schedule just to piss people off and I've only managed to see it twice.

Mostly agreeing with Hero here. >>

Except that there are tons of live action shows better than the worst anime. I'm fairly sure I've SEEN the worst anime. And it's name is Bobobo.

*doesnt watch cable tv*

*keeps walking*

Hang on. You've spent countless hundreds of hours watching all those shows, but not South Park.

What the hell is wrong with you?

A lot of people get the wrong idea of South Park from the first few seasons when literally the entire show was wither bathroom jokes or grade-school sex humour. Thus they don't really pay attention to it and as such don't know of its current awesomeness.

Oh, and are we talking about just cartoons or all primetime shows? Because Battlestar Galactica doesn't just own primetime, it is primetime.

Actually some of those are shows I rarely watch, used to watch (Prime Simpsons, Dinosaurs), only watch if I'm stuck with only TV available and every other channel is crap, or worse, CSI (Spongebob) or decided I didn't like very quickly and have reinforced with the occasional glimpse (American Dad). This is supposed to be a controversial statement because a lot of people here watch animation. Actually I'm not a big TV watcher.

I have started watching South Park this season, starting with the WoW episode I saw on youtube, which was ridiculously hilarious. What Bat said.

o.O Are we just sticking to comedy/anime..wait no Battlestar is there. Punt that. Heroes pwns Battlestar 8fold like a crossiant.

So, let's try this again

Prime Simpsons = Dinosaurs (This show wasn't tat good, I liked it back then...but now-eeh) > Futurama = South Park S.5 and after > Venture Bros = Heroes > ATHF > Boondocks > Venture (tentative position because I've only seen occasional episodes)= 1st Family Guy > Current Simpsons > Battlestar Galactica > Robot Chicken > Fairly Oddparents > Spongebob > 2nd Family Guy > Battlefield Earth > Sticking your head in something unpleasant > American Dad

Edit and fix :O

Heroes is lame, melodramatic, and overhyped, as well as being basically the same crap that's been in comics for the last 20 years only in teen-drama format. It doesn't even deserve a spot, because there's no shred of originality to it.

Firefly > All of it

I personally like Heroes, except it's VERY slow paced and it's taking forever to tell the darn story.

And you MUST add Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain (seperately of course). Those were awesome and chock full of political/celeb jokes.

Current Simpsons > Battlestar Galactica
I think the main reason I don't watch TV anymore is because too much of it appeals to people like you.

Maybe Darkest Light has different tastes than you? They are completely different genres.

My opinions (or lack thereof)

Dinosaurs, Futurama, ATHF, Family Guy, Venture, Robot Chicken, Battlefield Earth, South Park, and American Dad = I've never watched ;p

Fairly Oddparents > Spongebob (I'll only agree with this because I managed to watch Fairly Oddparents a few seconds longer than Spongebob)

Avatar = best show on Nick and one of the better cartoons on period at the moment

Avatar is pretty cool from what I've seen.

~Tobe

If I ever have the patience/time/means to sit down and watch Avatar in order, perhaps it will then get its deserved respect.

You can find Avatar episodes on Youtube.

actually, I already have the whole first season wasting space on my comp, but that only covers the means. I still need the patience and time.

There are liveaction programs easily better than any anime, they're just few. Twin Peaks is still possibly the highest-quality drama series ever made.
Other candidates to my mind include Doctor Who (new and old), Buffy, Angel, Firefly, the new Battlestar Galactica, The Avengers, The Prisoner and the 10th Kingdom.
I've yet to see any od Due South or Life on Mars, sadly. Or Lost Room, which seems like it might be promising. Oh, and then there's Masters of Horror.

Then we come to the anime, amd for anyone rubbishing the plot of that lot, I'm fairly sure Evangelion always knew where it was going.
Other anime worthy of mention include Slayers (the series), Outlaw Star and the sadly unfinished Angel Sanctuary. Probably Elfen Leid, too. I've also been hearing very good things about Paranoia Agent, which I need to see.

Then, and only then, do the programs which headed this topic come up, in my mind, and they're also outdone by Batman: The Animated Series and Dangermouse.

I'll also mention that the new Doctor Who has far more viewers (worldwide) than any of the programs other people have listed.

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Heroes is lame, melodramatic, and overhyped, as well as being basically the same crap that's been in comics for the last 20 years only in teen-drama format. It doesn't even deserve a spot, because there's no shred of originality to it.

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Except for the fact that only within the last what..5 years (I'd even say less that that), they've tried to really get some back story to most of the comic world that we've grown up with-and I don't mean origin, I mean the real backstories.

As for originality-it's moreso originaL because unlike the comic format-

1) You don't have people running around in costume
2) You have a (SEMI!!!) plausible explanation for why the heck you have these people running around able to do all this
3) You have repercussions for the powers at hand {Most comics have this, but its not so overly bent on some weird explanation.)
4) You actually don't have to worry about some uber mega villian coming from space that already knows about everyone and totally takes away from the story.

Now-while I'm not saying the fundamental idea is not something we've all seen before, I am saying that its being told in a much better light-and the show is worth watching, if just for that.

Truthfully-I was hating on the show for about...halfway through the first half of the season (Come on, wtf kinda tagline is "Save the Cheerleader, save the world?!?!"). I forced myself to watch Episode 6 when it aired...then yeah, Heroes fan ever since.

WOW-that was longer than it should have been, Bat >P!

--Second thing..about Battlestar Galactica. I really have a hard time getting into space type shows -.-...so I really don't watch it.

Third..././...Reading through these lists....I should watch half of these shows to get a feel for them...

...None of you guys like American Dad?

Wow. Maybe it's a culture thing. Regardless, my list now. There may be a couple shows on this list that you aren't familiar with: Wikipedia them, I'm sure they're there. This list isn't genre-specific either; it's not just comedy stuff, it's pretty much everything I watch that is a series. I'll also warn you that I'll probably not reply to any criticisms of my list either; my mind's made up. Anyway:

South Park = Star Trek: The Next Generation >>>>> The Simpsons (1-8 ) > Futurama > Six Feet Under > Stargate SG-1 (1-8 ) > Star Trek: Deep Space Nine > Star Trek: The Original Series > Star Trek: Enterprise > Star Trek: Voyager > (New) Doctor Who > American Dad > Family Guy (Series 4-) > Family Guy (Series 1-3) > Scrubs > The Simpsons (9- ) > Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps > Deal or No Deal > Countdown

I'll add to this list if I forgot anything. Again, I have no interest in what other people think of this list, I just felt compelled to post it because I seem to the be the only one who likes American Dad around here. :/

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Then we come to the anime, amd for anyone rubbishing the plot of that lot, I'm fairly sure Evangelion always knew where it was going.

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Oh, please. It's widely believed (and fairly obvious) that halfway through the series Anno took the series in a VASTLY different direction from anything that he had hinted at earlier. It went from exceptional giant robot fare to bizarrely bogus psychology and philosophy with a dramatic increase of the meaningless Christian aesthetics. End of Evangelion was only another nonsensical and arbitrary twist inspired by the hate mail that Anno received.

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Oh, please. It's widely believed (and fairly obvious) that halfway through the series Anno took the series in a VASTLY different direction from anything that he had hinted at earlier. It went from exceptional giant robot fare to bizarrely bogus psychology and philosophy with a dramatic increase of the meaningless Christian aesthetics. End of Evangelion was only another nonsensical and arbitrary twist inspired by the hate mail that Anno received.

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Just because you yourself do not understand something doesn't make it nonsensical, I'm afraid.
Evangelion made perfectly good sense, as did the ending, and there are signs from the beginning about the way it was going.
The words "meaningless" and the like are applied by those who didn't understand the (surprisingly sophisticated) plot in order to make themselves feel better.

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...None of you guys like American Dad?

Wow. Maybe it's a culture thing.

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Actually one person does. But I don't see how it could be a culture thing since the show attempts to parody stupid patriots, and the jokes should in theory be more accessible to a native. I just think it does it poorly (the show somehow manages to make jokes about Bush that aren't funny, which is something I thought impossible) and is a bad ripoff of Family Guy (by the same creator), but with the 2 best characters in Family Guy replaced by a one-joke fish and an annoying alien. That and the main character is basically Stephen Colbert, who does it so much better.

As for the Simpsons, I didn't specify exact seasons, but at one point it was very bad, around the bottom of the list. Now it's inconsistent but every other episode or so manages to have moments of hilarity or even rarely a line of top notch satire ("love in its purest form: a binding legal contract!" is probably the most succint summary of the absurdity of the gay marriage debate I've ever heard), so that's why I have current Simpsons at a decent position. I think it's rather underrated because it's often painful to see the drop from the best episodes and the misfires.

South Park from what I have seen would probably go right after ATHF.

Originally I was just talking about animated comedies, so mentioning Avatar was an afterthought based on its recent discussions here. That's why anime didn't come into it, and I'm not going to bring up that subject now.

Since people have brought sci-fi into it:

Stargate SG-1 (with RDA) > ST DS9 > Firefly > Stargate SG-1 (with Ben Browder) = Stargate Atlantis > ST TNG > ST

Ben Browder / Mitchell sucks. I'm fine with the other new character, Vala, but whoever casted Ben Browder killed the show, and the writers' attempts to integrate him were very bad.

Deep Space Nine did very, very well with characters and casting. The captain had the usual heroism but wasn't afraid to sacrifice his own morality for his crew, unlike the other Star Trek captains who'd drag people into suicide missions for their principles. Quark, Garak, need I say more? It's definitely way above the other Treks.

Too annoying to bother with: Voyager (I despise or am indifferent to every character on this show except the Doctor; it's like Bizarro DS9) and Enterprise
Only seen once: Battlestar Galactica, and it seemed to have a lot of interesting plots, but for the same reason it seemed like something too hard to get into without having seen more of the backstory. Doctor Who (new) seemed to be trying to be campy but isn't very funny about it, so I won't say more lest I enrage the Doctor Who fans.

It's not that I don't understand the symbolism, allusion, psychoanalysis and what have you (the plot is another question entirely). I understand it fairly well, and it still seems fairly meaningless.

I'm not going to get into an exhaustive discussion about it, either. So I'll address a small piece of it for example. The heavy Christian allusion in the series. It's perfectly understandable, and I understand the allusions at least as well as if not better than the next viewer. But the allusions are an end in and of itself. to quote Anno (emphasis by yours truly):

Anno:
There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.

So that explains the OMG DEEP MEANING of the "Christianity" in Eva.

Most of the latter half of Evangelion is what you'd get if you took legitimate Freudian psychoanalysis and legitimate Sartrean existentialism and a bunch of other legitimate schools of thought and threw them into a blender and they got what I shall now call "intellectual-by-product-stew." So Anno said "all right, let's cram as much of this sh*t into thirteen episodes as possible!" building on the established canon and painting it over with a thin veneer of Christian symbolism. Then, in the ending, their budget was running dry and fans were either (a) ecstatic because they didn't understand what was going on but they thought it was fabulously intellectual (b) getting fed up with it because they had no clue what was going on or (b) getting fed up because they realized that a legitimate giant robot show with legitimate philosophical overtones had just turned into a bogus philosophical show with legitimate giant robot overtones. So Anno was like "lol anime" and they just threw all their remaining intellectual-by-product-stew into the last two episodes so they wouldn't have to animate any action sequence. And it was cool because it was postmodern! Or something!

Then, Anno got letters that said "your a genyus lol" and "I don't get it" and "what the scooter?" So End of Evangelion was made, with action sequences, and also with a fresh batch of intellectual-by-product-stew. And just for kicks they even added the post-modernism of the original ending.

And does all the post-modern, philosophical, psychoanalytical, religious, technological jargon and symbolism have any meaning or anything? Yes. What does it mean? It means that they just threw it in because they thought it would be cool.

And, you know what? They were right. It is pretty cool. But don't go trying to make it into something it's not.

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Ben Browder / Mitchell sucks. I'm fine with the other new character, Vala, but whoever casted Ben Browder killed the show, and the writers' attempts to integrate him were very bad.

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aww... I agree Richard Dean Anderson was far better in every way, but I don't hate Ben Browder that much. He's kinda grown on me a little, although he's certainly not the high point of the show. And there have been some pretty good episodes this season.

oh, and woo hoo for DS9.

There are, sadly, a number of problems with your statement.

Firstly, you're going with the popular myth that the film was conceieved of merely to satisfy the fans, depite the strong evidence in the last two episodes that links to it being planned all along. Yes, the last two episodes were what they were because of budget running dry, but The End of Evangelion is the ending that was always planned- all you have to do is watch Episodes 25-6 closely to observe the structure of the events in the film contained within them.
But hey, far be it from me to discourage you from believing rumours you read on the internet.

The quote you posted merely explains the symbolism itself, and since the actual plot of Evangelion is irrelevant to which religion (which, btw, is not canon Christianity but in fact Judaic myth and the Apocrypha) was being used, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the meaning of the actual plot, this is hardly proving any of your points. The way it's structured, they could easily have used any religion.
I never claimed the Christianity had meaning. However, none of what I said was talking about the symbolism or allusion. The plot makes sense, even if you are not yourself able to understand it, and none of the half-formed rumours you just offered up has any weight in contradicting that.

Calling something bogus, "intellectual-by-product-stew." and other such things to mask the fact you aren't up to understanding it isn't terribly impressive. There are plenty of things I don't understand (though the plot of Evangelion is, I hasten to add, not among them), but this does not mean I have the arrogance to claim that things outside my own scope of understanding must not make sense to anyone, ever.

Your understanding is lacking, not the series.

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aww... I agree Richard Dean Anderson was far better in every way, but I don't hate Ben Browder that much. He's kinda grown on me a little, although he's certainly not the high point of the show. And there have been some pretty good episodes this season.

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He's not TERRIBLE, but when I see Shephard in Atlantis, I realize that getting another military guy with charisma to replace RDA wouldn't be impossible. That and I didn't like that he became the leader instead of Carter, and I'm rather perturbed about Sci-Fi cancelling it.

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(which, btw, is not canon Christianity but in fact Judaic myth and the Apocrypha)

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I know this. I am aware that things such as Lilith and the Lance of Longinus and the names of the Magi which are used as the names of the computers are not canon Christianity. Thee factoids are outside of my point.

I never said the plot made no sense. The plot makes sense to me although I think it is ridiculous and I believe, as a lot of other fans do, that they are two different equally trippy endings.

This was never my point. My point was that "It's widely believed (and fairly obvious) that halfway through the series Anno took the series in a VASTLY different direction from anything that he had hinted at earlier." In other words, at some point, Anno made a conscious decision to radically change the direction of the series (both its plot and tone) from what he had originally intended.

As for my claim about Evangelion being only pseudo-intellectual, your response seems to be "Well, I dunno what it means, but I'm sure it must mean something!" Which isn't a convincing argument. Making me out to be ignorant or arrogant (perhaps I am?) isn't addressing the point either.

In any case, I'm done polluting this topic with Evangelion. If you want to discus this further, make a topic.

Evangelion sucks for an entirely different reason than being an overly convoluted mess, and that reason is that the characters are one-dimensional and boring ^__^

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He's not TERRIBLE, but when I see Shephard in Atlantis, I realize that getting another military guy with charisma to replace RDA wouldn't be impossible. That and I didn't like that he became the leader instead of Carter, and I'm rather perturbed about Sci-Fi cancelling it.

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Ah yes. All good points.

Two final points:
a) they aren't two different endings. They're exactly the same ending, and this is signposted clearly.

b) I never said in any way that I don't know what the plot of Evangelion means. I know exactly what it means, redering your statement entirely incorrect.

I believe...

... that 'The Shield' is the best drama on all of TV (although my exposure to Galactica is limited.
... that the entire CSI franchise sucks the farts out of dead cats. ESPECIALLY Miami.
... that 'Avatar' is a far better cartoon than Nickelodeon deserves and does shonen anime better than most shonen anime series.
... that 'South Park' is, was and will always be funny.
... that The Simpsons is like the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith: great back in the day, but for gods sake hang it up before you embarrass yourselves.
... that Adult Swim is crazy if they don't pick up 'Black Lagoon'.
... that Batman's 'Almost Got Em' is the greatest single episode of any animated show ever.
... that 'Grey Ghost' comes in as a close second.
... that 'Scrubs' is the greatest sitcom of the last decade.
... that Dr. Cox >>>>>>>>>>>> Dr. House.
... that I really didn't like 'Dinosaurs'. At all.
... that 'Venture Bros', 'Metalocalypse', 'Robot Chicken' and 'Frisky Dingo' are the funniest cartoons that aired last year.

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... that the entire CSI franchise sucks the farts out of dead cats. ESPECIALLY Miami.

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Nicely worded... Can't say I disagree though. I used to watch all three shows, before my brain kicked in. Miami in particular is just ridiculous, I cringe at the very thought of it.

Now NCIS is a completely different story, that show's still awesome.

that 'Scrubs' is the greatest sitcom of the last decade.

I would argue that it's the greatest ever, but it's a matter of opinion so I won't.

So why does nobody list cops in there "everything" lists? No one else is a huge fan?

I think it's because COPS is a reality TV show.

Statistically, over 80% of anime have two- or three-dimensional characters (when referring to depth). Evangelion isn't one of them. Try something like Dragonball Z, where all the main characters are fighters with different styles who all fight to grow stronger and overcome the latest "evil superpower". Of course, the genius of DBZ is that even with such pathetic characters, the plot (as repetitive as it is) is pretty good and the action is extreme (which is what DBZ is not only widely known for, but is centered around).

Suffice to say, just because an anime has 1- or 2-D characters doesn't mean it's bad. It just means that the characters are pieces of moo-moo hiney that nobody cares so much about during the entire run of the series.

BTW:

Lexx>ST TNG>Farscape>ST>ST :Anything Else:

That's about it for me and Sci-Fie. :3

80% of all statistics are made up. I'm just saying this before somebody more sarcastic says it badly. 😛

DB+Z is a pretty good 50-100 episode anime made in 500 episodes. The jumping of the shark started with Cell and was definitely confirmed with "here Cell, have a senzu bean," though. It destroyed the character that had been carrying the show.

BTW, if somebody bashes Evangelion, I think it's a fair bet they have seen DBZ, because most people have seen it and are now embarrassed to admit it. 😛

Oh yeah, I forgot Farscape, which was quite suspenseful. But I lost track of it after the first season and couldn't follow the plot after that with random episodes.

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that the entire CSI franchise sucks the farts out of dead cats. ESPECIALLY Miami.

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LOL Miami: Hey let's drive around in humvees to support the massive weight of David Caruso's humongous craned hamming head while he flies helicopters, beats automatic guns with a pistol, fights tidal waves, and massages his ego.

Vortex believes Miami is a comedy intended to parody the silliness of CSI, but I think it's just that bad.

I'd just like to say that regardless of the show (never seen it) or the movie, "Reno 911: Miami" is one of the best movie titles I've ever heard.

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that The Simpsons is like the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith: great back in the day, but for gods sake hang it up before you embarrass yourselves.

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They embarrassed themselves a few years ago and I see it now as an effort to at least redeem it to some degree. I'd rather give them a chance to end it on a reasonably high note than have it go out bad.