Friday's Favorite 100 Longform Video Media

[Friday]

So let's lay out the rules, to begin with.

1. Things that have movies in them count, like the MCU, but only the parts that are not movies. For example, Wandavision is on this list, but Infinity War is not.

2. No anime. Talking about anime is like talking about heroin, it's only appealing for people who are also into heroin. It has it's own subculture and tropes and style that defines it. I'm not a hardcore heroin addict, only a recreational user, but still, I'd rather quarantine anime to it's own thread, if and when I ever get around to writing a serious review of fucking Kill La Kill or that anime that starts with the cat's ear flicking and HOO (hi Esper)

3. Anime is defined as "made in fucking japan, or so closely aping the style that while it was not made in japan it might as well have been" and this distinction is defined, in this thread, by me. I know the war to define what is and isn't anime rages even now elsewhere on the internet, but for here, you're just going to have to accept my own personal definition of it. Also I may make an exception or two because:

4. I actually haven't compiled a list yet. Actually, I imagine this is the hardest top 100 list I will ever have to compile. There's just so many TV shows and miniseries out there. I could easily make a top 20 or 30, but talking about 100 is going to be tough. I may have to include some truly exceptional animes just to fill in the gaps. I'll try to make them as, uh, generally appealing as possible. Stuff you could recommend to someone who doesn't have 10 years of seasonal anime behind them.

5. Unlike anime, other types of animated material, commonly labeled as "cartoons" by most, are on the table. I already have several in mind.

6. As the title states, this is my own personal favorites, not what I consider "best". It's also limited by what I have seen, so I know for a fact that I will not be including some of the greats simply because I have never seen them. Maybe you guys can recommend me some!

7. I tried to load up the games (most of them) I reviewed in my other threads and give them a whirl before I wrote my reviews. I cannot do that here. I can't just simply watch the entirety of a 10 season show "real quick" so expect some murky memories. Especially of anything that aired originally in the 90s or 80s.

8. (edit) Oh, and it has to be like, a story. Jeopardy is a great game show and the Daily Show is a great... whatever it is, but they're not stories. It doesn't have to be fiction, though. It can be a historical story or whatever.

Alright, I think that covers it. And despite not having a list compiled yet (that may take me several days of thinking and looking through lists on the internet to remind myself of what I've watched over my lifetime, plus any time incurred due to laziness) I do have a specific show for slot 100. So...

[Friday]

100. Friends



Everybody's talking shit about Friends,

Monica Chandler Joey Rachel Ross and them

and for good reason. The show is fatphobic, homophobic (every time two male characters touch, they act like a five year old expressing disgust over cooties) transphobic, and just an all around good ol' 90s humor smorgasbord of shit that would absolutely under no circumstances fly even as far as a Secret of Mana level zero bow shot today. It's probably the poster fuckin' child of "problematic" and it does not surprise me one iota that it is decidedly unpopular with Zoomers, who are both less bigoted and less tolerant of lazy humor than Millennials and Boomers were and are.

So, then, does the show suck?

Nah, it's pretty good.

I put it at 100 for a reason, though. It's got... issues. And I don't just mean issues as in "holy jesus fuck they drug out the will they or won't they of Ross/Rachel for so goddamn long that I just want both of them to get hit by a bus" although I do also mean that. Ross is borderline unbearable as a character. David Schwimmer is great at physical comedy and when they focus on Ross being a fucking weirdo instead of a possessive, jealous douchebag, he's pretty funny. The rest of them have issues also, mainly due to the other big problem of the series:

Flanderization. For those of you who don't know what that means, here's wikipedia:

"Flanderization is the process through which a complex fictional character's essential traits are oversimplified to the point where they constitute their entire personality, or at least exaggerated while other traits remain, over the course of a serial work. The term Flanderization was coined by TV Tropes[1] in reference to Ned Flanders of The Simpsons, who was caricatured over the show's run from a friendly and good-hearted neighbor (among other characteristics, while maintaining his Christian faith) into a dogmatic, evangelical "bible-thumper".[2] Flanderization is often associated with and cited as a consequence of "jumping the shark", a term used to demonstrate a creative work's gradual decline in quality."

Suffice it to say, Joey begins the series as a dumb but loyal dude and ends it as a person who is essentially brain damaged. Monica begins as a overbearing but good-hearted girl and ends as a control-freak who is hyper competitive to the point where she would probably burn down an entire country to win a ping pong match. You get the idea.

I don't want to spend the entire review bashing Friends. It's a pretty funny show and even now and again when I catch an episode airing I'll find myself laughing a few times, which is more than I can say for most comedy series. The writing is sharp and shows a good understanding of how people talk and interact. Chandler's constant sarcastic, irritating quips should be familiar to all of us, we all have that friend (or are that friend). The show's strengths are when the main six give each other shit for their bullshit. Joey's flatline "you're a dork" said to Ross when Ross was preening about making up a stupid nickname will live forever in my head (and often come out of my lips when one of my friends is being a dip) as will many other of the jabs and jibes that the Friends give to each other. It's solid stuff and has a real understanding of how friend groups interact.

I couldn't give two shits about Chandler-Monica, and I actively hate the Ross/Rachel bullshit. People say they hate the Joey/Rachel ship they tried toward the end of the series, but hell, I loved it, just because I was so goddamn sick of Ross and Rachel. I don't really care for any of the long-term storylines, actually. Monica and Chandler adopting a kid and moving out of the city bores me to tears.

Phoebe is, for my money, the best character on the show. (I like Joey a lot too, despite his Flanderization.) Her free-spirited attitude and her no nonsense lifestyle actually places her as the least weird character on the show, for my money. She's kooky, sure, but she's a sex positive blonde bombshell who knows what she wants out of life. It's too bad they do her dirty and make her marry Ant-Man at the last second.

Do I recommend this show:
Nah. It's dated by today's standards and there's plenty of funnier shit out there. I suppose if you're interested in studying the culture of the 90s it might be an informative experience.

[Mongrel]

Allz I know is Columbo better make it on here.

I'm mentioning it just in case, because you only said 80's/90's, even though I'm 99% sure that you would remember it at some point even without me saying anything. I mean, if it was my list it would have a lot of other things from the 70's but this is your list, not mine, and not too many other pre-80's media I'm be sure would be on your list come to mind (TOS as well, I guess?).

[Büge]

The show is fatphobic, homophobic (every time two male characters touch, they act like a five year old expressing disgust over cooties) transphobic, and just an all around good ol' 90s humor smorgasbord of shit that would absolutely under no circumstances fly even as far as a Secret of Mana level zero bow shot today.

Also it takes place in 1990s Manhattan and there's not a black person in the goddamn universe, apparently

[beatbandito]

[Büge]

Can't believe he missed the guy who sings in the morning outside Joey's room

[Friday]

Allz I know is Columbo better make it on here.

Let me lay your fears to rest right now and say:

1. Columbo is absolutely on here
and
2. We're not going to be talking about it for quite a while.

That being said, my list of shows I've seen that are from the 70s or earlier is very, very short. I think Brent has shown me enough of TOS to be qualified to review it, but honestly Brent could do a better job of it.

[Esperath]

HOO (hi Esper)

hoo there

[Mongrel]

2. We're not going to be talking about it for quite a while.

Well I would hope so! Hoping not see him show up at like, #89.

[Upthorn]

2. We're not going to be talking about it for quite a while.

Well I would hope so! Hoping not see him show up at like, #89.

Secretly Friday just plans to take a 6 month hiatus before posting Columbo at #99

[Niku]

[Caithness]

Can't believe he missed the guy who sings in the morning outside Joey's room

He got around to it eventually

[Friday]

99. Roseanne



Alright, before we talk about the show, we need to talk about shitty Creators.

For those of you not in the know, recently Roseanne (the show) got a reboot and shortly thereafter Roseanne herself had a racist meltdown on twitter. She was killed off in the reboot and the show was renamed The Conners.

I haven't seen any of the new Roseanne/Conners so I will not be talking about that here.

What I will be talking about is Death of the Author.

So, talking about TV shows is a little different than talking about videogames. (Unless you're talking about a Blizzard Videogame, lol!) There's a ton of shitty, shitty people who made/participated in really great TV shows and longform media.

A lot of the time, whenever I watch a 2+ hour video essay about any show that has "problematic" people in it/made it, the essay will spend a tremendous amount of time discussing the details of said shitty person and what they did. That's fine. I can understand why they do that. I don't think it's wrong to talk about how much of a piece of shit these people are. But I don't want to do that here. I want to focus on the media/art itself. And while I don't blame anyone who feels like Harry Potter is ruined by Dusty Turf or whatever, I myself have a neat mental trick to get around that. It's called Death of the Author! For a long time, in fact until very recently (which because I am now old, "very recently" now means in the last 1-3 years to me) I mostly disagreed with Death of the Author. I now mostly agree with it. I still think that authorial intent matters, but only a small amount compared to what people individually (or as a group) take away from your art. In a very real sense, the art ceases to be the creator's property and becomes the property of the ones who experience it. I still maintain that the authors thoughts and feelings and intent DO matter and should be taken into account, but I now believe that the author should always be secondary to each individuals experience and interpretations.

So what I'm going to do in this thread is this: When we get to media that was created by/starred in by shitty people, I will mention them briefly, perhaps give a summation of what they did, and then move on. I do not wish to focus on this aspect of media analysis in this thread, though again, I do not think that type of analysis is wrong or bad. I simply just wish to focus on the media itself. So when we get to media that has shitty people attached to it (and we will) just know that you won't have to read about the details of the horrible, awful shit. I'll mention the ones I'm aware of and then move on to talking about the work.

At some point, I'd also like to make a thread where I discuss my feelings and thoughts on the concept of Death of the Author in more detail, because it's been an important change in my life and how I experience things, but that's a job for another time. Anyway.

We cool?

Cool.

Roseanne (1988 to 1997) is a breakthrough feminist blue collar show about blue collar feminists. Blue collar, feminist, working class. Blue collar blue collar feminist. Working collar, blue feminist, working class poverty domestic issues. Okay, there, I've summed up every review of Roseanne ever made.

Where Roseanne stood out from the crowd in my opinion was in playing with the standard male/female relationship in sitcoms. Roseanne and Dan (played by the amazing John Goodman) are both very strong personalities. They fought and clashed and butted heads. Nowhere to be seen is the boilerplate sitcom fat idiot who is inexplicably married to a total hottie who constantly makes fun of him. Dan is overweight, but not stupid. He stands up for himself but also knows when to give in. You know, like in a real relationship. Roseanne is likewise overweight and not conventionally attractive, and while she makes fun of him, this comes off less as "the wife constantly condescends to the husband" and more as just Roseanne's general caustic, sarcastic personality. And she's never portrayed as perfect, but instead very human with both flaws and strengths.

And there's real love there between them, too. The scene where Dan tricks Roseanne while giving her flowers remains one of my all time favorite scenes in a sitcom. "You scum!" (My actual number one scene is coming up later in the thread, don't worry.)

Like any long-running 80s-90s sitcom, the show has its ups and downs. By no means have I seen all of it, but I used to watch it pretty religiously with my family around dinnertime, back when that was a thing families did. In fact a good amount of shows on this list (most of them lower rated) will be appearing from that time in my life.

So I don't remember a lot of specifics about Roseanne. People nowadays talk about it as "groundbreaking" and "unafraid to take on serious issues" and I suppose that is true. At the time, watching it, the dysfunction of the Conners seemed fairly tame to what I was experiencing myself, though as a kid I didn't really think about it in those terms at the time. But I will give the show credit for confronting the issue of domestic abuse and the way abusers always paint themselves as the victim.

John Goodman deserves another mention. Even watching a few clips in prep for writing this, it's very clear he is by far the best actor on the show, along with Laurie Metcalf, who plays Jackie.

Oh, and uh, Becky got recast and then recast back to her original actor.

And I guess Darlene went on the be on Big Bang Theory, a show that will very much not be appearing on this list.

So, yeah. That's Roseanne. Despite my initial piece on Death of the Author and how I want to focus on the work itself, I don't really have a ton to say about it. Probably that's mostly due to my last viewing of a full episode being like 20+ years ago more than anything else.

Do I recommend this show:
Maybe a bit more than Friends, but still leaning No. It's hard to recommend anything from that whole 90s era, honestly. Though there are some exceptions, as we will see.

[Friday]

also my god i had to WORK to get to 100 shows. I think I read every goddamn wikipedia article written about TV, as well as reading through like 20 top 100 lists of various genres. As I predicted, I had the opposite problem compared to finding my top 100 videogames. In that list, I easily generated a list of 250 or so games I liked without even trying that hard, then had to whittle them down (a very painful experience, as you can imagine) but this time around it was the opposite. There's a lot of really bad TV out there, guys.

It did, however, throw into sharp relief just how many shows that are critically lauded that I have never seen. Be prepared, I can basically guarantee that each of you will be annoyed that I left out one of your favorites.

(Not Columbo though)

[Friday]

98. Family Guy



Welcome to the worst of the animated sitcoms. It's Family Guy!

God, what the fuck do I even say about Family Guy. A lot of people love this show (including one of my irl friends, who is borderline obnoxious about quoting it constantly, and that's coming from me, a person who quotes stupid meme shit basically nonstop) and a lot of people fucking despise it. The hate for this show is... well, pretty justified. Generally criticism of Family Guy goes that it's lowbrow, unfunny, lazy and repetitive, and, uh, yeah. A lot of the humor also is just "hey kids, remember that thing?" but I can't really single out Family Guy for doing that kind of shit, because that's all Millennial humor now.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that all criticism against Family Guy I've ever heard is pretty much 100% valid.

Doesn't stop the show from being funny sometimes though.

At its worst, Family Guy is stupid, boring bathroom/gross out humor and lazy references. At it's best, it's Seth MacFarlane talking to himself through Stewie and Brian, the two in the above clip. Their relationship of mutual hatred and respect is the best part of the show, and the episodes that center on them really shine. Brian is basically a self-insert of Seth himself, a do-nothing ivory tower liberal who thinks Direct Action is posting on twitter to raise awareness. He's not a bad person, and he certainly has a brain, but he's the sort of self-assured irritating smug white asshole that, well, Seth himself is. Stewie is an evil genius who wanted to kill his mom but has sort of mellowed out to just a gay weirdo with cool sci-fi tech and a talent for getting under Brian's skin.

Meanwhile, Peter is "what if Homer was even dumber and fatter and had an accent" and Lois is "what if Marge was more sarcastic and occasionally unhinged". Chris, the middle son, is basically just Peter but young. Meg is the punching bag. The rest of the supporting cast includes a serial rapist, a guy who just exists to make jokes about people with handicaps, another serial rapist (this one a pedo) and, well, you get the idea. It's very clearly going for "Refuge in Audacity" with its cast and jokes and I guess it depends on the viewer's opinion if the show makes it there or not.

I've watched a good bit of Family Guy, especially the early seasons. My views on the show should be mostly clear to you by how low it placed on the list, but to sum up:

A very flawed show with a few brilliantly funny moments here and there, and one good character relationship.

Family Guy is about as basic bitch as you can get. Unlike some of the other animated shows we'll get to later on this list, it has neither a heart or a satirical bite. It's all about getting that laugh, and it will cross any line to get it. Most of the time going too far to get nothing. But once in a while when the writers just write something actually clever it can be a pretty good time.

Do I recommend this show:
No.

[Thad]

It occasionally manages heart and satirical bite. Rarely, and probably not often enough to be worth the other stuff, which is why I haven't watched it in a decade or so. But it's had the occasional flash where it wasn't just funny but actually had something to say.

[nosimpleway]

All of that is true of pre-revival Family Guy. Post-revival Seth MacFarlane is out from the writing team, only returning to do the voices. The writing team lost the majority of its talent right then, and the remaining team felt like they had Protection vs. Editors, so now you get references and throwbacks without any jokes.

[Thad]

All of that is true of pre-revival Family Guy. Post-revival Seth MacFarlane is out from the writing team, only returning to do the voices. The writing team lost the majority of its talent right then, and the remaining team felt like they had Protection vs. Editors, so now you get references and throwbacks without any jokes.

I think your timeline's off. The revival was season 4 all the way back in 2005, and some of the show's best material came after that. Most of the good Brian/Stewie stuff came post-revival; the show had started exploring them as a team with the first couple Bob/Bing pastiches in seasons 2 and 3, but most of their character development as individuals and as a pair came post-revival.

It also seems like there was a period after South Park's lazy two-episode rant about Family Guy's lazy reference humor where they tried to dial back on that stuff for awhile and do more character-based comedy. I think that succeeded somewhat, before they fell back into edgy-for-the-sake-of-edgy.

(I'll also add that American Dad improved dramatically once MacFarlane stopped writing for it.)

(And maybe someday I'll get around to writing up my thoughts on how much Duckman was a precursor to Family Guy; they even did a Bob and Bing Road To... episode.)

[Mongrel]

Man, Duckman still has quite the bite, even after all these years. Sometimes it was just plain brutal.

[Thad]

Though OTOH -- and a key reason I compare it to Family Guy -- a whole lot of its humor is just shock-value stuff , like jokes that think they're provocative but are really just racist.

When it was on, though, it was on, like the bit in "America the Beautiful" where they skewer idealized 1950s values and "wholesome" TV families. And just for that authentic '50s TV flavor, the couple is played by June Lockhart and Alan Young. Which is also the kind of casting meta-joke Family Guy would do.