Smiling Friends - did u smile

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did u smile

  • yes

    Votes: 741 94.8%

  • no

    Votes: 78 10.0%
  • Total voters
    782
I'm glad we're getting more Alan, I like the funny red guy and the little quirks in how he talks. But I can't tell if they're trying to go for him being an occasional asshole or simply unaware, I'd prefer unaware.

As an extra, does anyone recall when they opened up an email for people to submit designs and creatures for Smiling Friends? I made one submission of a cat I drew drunk about a decade ago.
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deeman said:
Gee, all you guys seems to really love this episode, i watched it once, one joke had me rolling on the floor but otherwise... eh.... i guess i'll have to rewatch it and see if i'm not mistaken.
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Yeah, it seems weird to me too, SF is pretty good when it comes to witty dialogue, but the alan was mostly just lol random xd humour.
 
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This one was definitely the most reliant on joke-jokes rather than situational-jokes, and you could really tell that Cussack wrote a lot of it. I say it’s up there with S1’s hollowed episode, in both style and quality.

DJ Spit is 100% coming back, probably with a huge nasty scar on his torso
 
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McMitch said:
This one was definitely the most reliant on joke-jokes rather than situational-jokes, and you could really tell that Cussack wrote a lot of it. I say it’s up there with S1’s hollowed episode, in both style and quality.

DJ Spit is 100% coming back, probably with a huge nasty scar on his torso
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I loved the episode—one of my favorites as of late.
It's wild to think that we're already debating whether DJ Spit is coming back or not. I could see it either way. But the one silver lining is that he asked Siri to call the hospital. Depends on what you think happened after Allan left.
 
This newest one wasn't my favorite episode comedy wise (still really funny) but all the different animations kicked ass. I think they just wanted to play around with action and make something look really cool which they accomplished. It's also just cool to see a bunch of small creators that people have watched for years show up on a network TV show, you can tell Zach and Michael are really pushing to get people work.
 
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Mr. Manchester said:
I think they just wanted to play around with action and make something look really cool which they accomplished. It's also just cool to see a bunch of small creators that people have watched for years show up on a network TV show, you can tell Zach and Michael are really pushing to get people work.
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My favorite decision they made regarding the entirety of the series. Is the Pilot. The premise of Smiling Friends is the idea of a charity whose sole purpose is to help people down in the dumps. What's the penultimate concept that you can execute with that premise? Suicide. If this were any other group of people making this series they would never approach that right off the gate, they would use that as the finale. Only tackling that concept after years of experience in the writing room of the show. However, they decided to go with it right away. Arguably the best episode of the series, very well written. With that concept out of the way, it allows the show to go in any direction it wants. No boundaries. We're seeing the fruit of this with every episode so far. There's no need to hold it down in any form. The animation has been excellent this season.
 
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俺たちファームズでノッテる said:
My favorite decision they made regarding the entirety of the series. Is the Pilot. The premise of Smiling Friends is the idea of a charity whose sole purpose is to help people down in the dumps. What's the penultimate concept that you can execute with that premise? Suicide. If this were any other group of people making this series they would never approach that right off the gate, they would use that as the finale. Only tackling that concept after years of experience in the writing room of the show. However, they decided to go with it right away. Arguably the best episode of the series, very well written. With that concept out of the way, it allows the show to go in any direction it wants. No boundaries. We're seeing the fruit of this with every episode so far. There's no need to hold it down in any form. The animation has been excellent this season.
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Smiling Friends is great, because it's not edgy bullshit for the sake of being nihilistic or edgy. It's premise is to make people (the audience) smile (and by extension laugh. The most violence for the sake of violence we've seen is Mr. Frog in the Jimble episode, but his character is already established as a psycho. The Frowning Friends kind of had it coming they were antagonists after all, but even they Grim and Gnarly smiled at the end before the Renaissance men showed up. There's no poltiical leaning left or right, there's no message at the end, which even early South Park had. I'd say it's closer to the early Simpsons than anything else except without the aspect of family to it; but the Simpsons was also going for a deconstruction of the American nuclear family sitcom. Maybe Futurama?
If I were to break down the thesis of the most popular adult animated television shows out there it would be this:

The Simpsons - Early: Deconstruction of the typical sitcom. Current: Derivative, pop culture trash.
Family Guy - Early: Family sitcom with adult jokes, low key Simpsons clone. Current: Edgy offensive humor for the sake of it. No tact or nuance.
American Dad - Political satire of conservative American beliefs that kind of became better than family guy because the writing is better. I haven't seen many of the newest episodes, but it's start was political satire with a sitcom mask.
South Park - Toilet humor revolving around a cast of kids, however at the end of most (not all) episodes some sort of lesson is learned or moral is spoken about by Kyle/Stan. Current South Park is a bit different now, possibly suffering from seasonal rot. However, both still have political and social commentary. Because Matt & Trey usually had a message with their episodes, they took their criticism of just being toilet humor and made that the whole concept for the T&P show. Canada as a whole.
Cleveland Show - This existed
Drawn Together - Animated satire of reality TV shows which flooded television in the late 00s and early 10s. Very offensive humor, which kind of worked for it somehow because not a single character is likeable really. I need to rewatch this since I havent seen it in years.
Rick & Morty - SciFi escepades that started really strong, especially since this was around the second time Futurama ended, however a quickly formed and rabid fanbase ruined the show, and the writing got more nihilistic as time went on, and one of them kept inserting his fetish into the show. Strong start, slow fizzle.
Futurama - Late 90's take on how the future could look like, but it has a lot of aesthetics of 1950s drawings of the future. Fun adventures with a fish out of water perspective in a far more advanced world. Sometimes pushes sociopolitical commentary (robosexual episode) but otherwise funny and sometimes very emotional (that goddamn dog episode).
Smiling Friends - Just be funny, lmao. Preschooler drawings having realistic arguments and ending up in absurd scenarios.

Smiling Friends has a much more succinct concept vs everything else that's popular.
 
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Bionicle Enthusiast said:
Drawn Together - Animated satire of reality TV shows which flooded television in the late 00s and early 10s. Very offensive humor, which kind of worked for it somehow because not a single character is likeable really. I need to rewatch this since I havent seen it in years.
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I'd say Drawn Together was edgy above anything else. Drawn Together embraced jokesthat others wouldn't dare to touch.

If South Park had Kenny decapitated, Drawn Together would have Captain Hero fuck his corpse and spanky piss in his skull.

It worked because clever jokes, good setups and "it just went there", never held back.
 
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Bionicle Enthusiast said:
American Dad - Political satire of conservative American beliefs that kind of became better than family guy because the writing is better. I haven't seen many of the newest episodes, but it's start was political satire with a sitcom mask.
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It was political satire with Seth leftist sperging until after season two. The show gets better by the third season.
Bionicle Enthusiast said:
Drawn Together - Animated satire of reality TV shows which flooded television in the late 00s and early 10s. Very offensive humor, which kind of worked for it somehow because not a single character is likeable really. I need to rewatch this since I havent seen it in years.
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It's edgy, but it surprisingly holds up nicely

Oh, and @Bionicle Enthusiast, you forgot to mention Aqua Teen, Beavis & Butthead and Robot Chicken as they were also important aspects of adult animated sitcoms
 
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俺たちファームズでノッテる said:
My favorite decision they made regarding the entirety of the series. Is the Pilot. The premise of Smiling Friends is the idea of a charity whose sole purpose is to help people down in the dumps. What's the penultimate concept that you can execute with that premise? Suicide. If this were any other group of people making this series they would never approach that right off the gate, they would use that as the finale. Only tackling that concept after years of experience in the writing room of the show. However, they decided to go with it right away. Arguably the best episode of the series, very well written. With that concept out of the way, it allows the show to go in any direction it wants. No boundaries. We're seeing the fruit of this with every episode so far. There's no need to hold it down in any form. The animation has been excellent this season.
Click to expand...
The big problem of modern western animation is that it's either of two extremes. Either unrelentingly cynical or obnoxiously wholesome. Even when an edgy show tries to have a wholesome moment it feels forced as hell. Smiling Friends is never too edgy and when it's heartwarming it's not saccharine or completely retarded.
 
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wtfNeedSignUp said:
The big problem of modern western animation is that it's either of two extremes. Either unrelentingly cynical or obnoxiously wholesome. Even when an edgy show tries to have a wholesome moment it feels forced as hell. Smiling Friends is never too edgy and when it's heartwarming it's not saccharine or completely retarded.
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Most of western animation from both 90s and 2000s (and to a very lesser extent, the early 2010s), especially in adult animation, have been more creative and imaginative rather than sticking with either groups of nihilism or wholesome
 
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Bionicle Enthusiast said:
I don't know if I could consider those sitcoms, but I did miss King of the Hill.
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Beavis & Butthead, Aqua Teen and Robot Chicken are like Smiling Friends in a sense that they have episodes that are 10 minutes with a few exceptions, although Smiling Friends doesn't have a half-hour episode as of time of this post. I may throw in Superjail, Metalocalypse, Moral Orel and even short-lived shows like Mission Hill, The Critic and Clerks TAS as other examples of animated sitcoms.

But yes, King of the Hill was GOAT
 
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