Flintstones Award - Animated Series

Named For: The Flintstones (ABC) 1960-66
Award To: The best animated series of the year
2009: Family Guy (FOX)
2010: Family Guy (FOX)
2011: South Park (Comedy)
2012: South Park (Comedy)
2013: Archer (FX)

Here are this year's honorees...

5th. Rick and Morty (Cartoon Network) 3 points
1st by Jaydon

4th. Archer (FX) 5 points
1st by Cecil, Marsh

3rd. Family Guy (FOX) 6 points
1st by Braids; 3rd by me

2nd. Bob's Burgers (FOX) 6 points
1st by T-time, Jack; 1st by me

and the Poolie goes to...

1st. South Park (Comedy Central) 9 points
1st by Ty; 2nd by me

This is South Park's third win for the Flintstones Award. Last year Archer broke up its run of wins when the show finished third in the category.

The Flintstones Award- Animated Series

Named For: The Flintstones (ABC) 1960-66
Award To: The best animated series of the year
2009 Winner: Family Guy (FOX)
2010 Winner: Family Guy (FOX)
2011 Winner: South Park (Comedy)

5. Unsupervised (FX) 0 points

4. Bob's Burgers (FOX) 3 points
1st by Me

3. Archer (FX) 5 points
1st by Jaydon and Cecil

2. Family Guy (FOX) 6 points
1st by Rizzo and Jack, 3rd by Me

and the Poolie goes to...

1. South Park (Comedy) 10 points
1st by Tyson, Larry, and Bonz, 2nd by Me

This is South Park's fourth nomination and second straight win for the best animated series on television.

The group of animated series is stronger than most people would think.  I know Jaydon would put Archer as one of the best comedies on television, and I didn't even vote it in my top three.  South Park was my second favorite this season, but it's ability to appeal to so many earned it a second straight Flintstones Award in 2012.  Cartman and the gang had plenty of great adventures this season, including "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining," which was weird even for this Comedy Central series' standards.

by Dan Forcella

Weekly Comedy Rankings- Level One Wine

I had a couple of lengthy conversations about the current television front-runners over Twitter today. Before getting into those, let's take a look at which shows I thought were the best this week...

1. Community
2. It's Always Sunny
3. Happy Endings
4. Rules of Engagement
5. Bored to Death
6. Parks and Rec
7. The Office
8. Suburgatory
9. South Park
10. Last Man Standing
11. The League
12. Wizards of Waverly

As you can see, Community topped my list for the second straight week. It also was at the top of Jaydon's, T-time's, and I assume Jack's if he would ever get his done before Saturday. I found it funny when Rizzo claimed that he and the rest of the NYC squad found the last two Community's unwatchable. Both Jaydon and I were dumbfounded for responses, and he concluded with "Don't know how you can like Community and not love the last two." I completely agree. I understand not enjoying Community on the whole. It's a different breed. It's comedy is not for everyone, but if you like the show, I don't get not liking the last two. This week's had the best and most material for its funniest players (Troy, Abed, Pierce), which has me wondering what the problem was for those guys.

I had It's Always Sunny in the second spot, continuing what I have thought to be a very good season thus far, and Dennis Reynolds for my MVP of the week. All of the Sunny guys performed well, and I've always been a Dennis guy, so he comes up smelling like roses in this ridiculous episode about a made up board game. Charlie definitely had a couple of great moments, especially when he remembered why he wrote down "because Dennis is a bastard man."

My funniest moment was from this week's South Park. While the episode on the whole wasn't all that great for me, it was responsible for my single loudest laugh of the week. The episode, like the play within the show written by Randy, was a bit too up front. But after the theme of men taking their wives to the theater for the sole purpose of being treated well in the bedroom ran long enough, they executed things perfectly when an older gentleman complained to Randy that he was trying to enjoy watching Wicked with his granddaughter. The entire build up was worth it for Randy's "You f*ckin' pervert!"

It's awesome that Jaydon, and now T-time and Jack have kept going with this Weekly Comedy Rankings, but I'd love to see more people get involved. Marsh, Rizzo, anybody else who wants to get in on this is more than welcome.

The Flintstones Award- Best Animated Series

Named For: The Flintstones (ABC) 1960-66
Awarded To: The best animated series
2009 Winner: Family Guy (FOX)
2010 Winner: Family Guy (FOX)

Place. Show (Network) Points (My Vote)

5. Bob's Burgers (FOX) 0 points

4. The Ricky Gervais Show (HBO) 1 point (3rd)

3. Archer (FX) 5 points

2. Family Guy (FOX) 7 points (1st)

and the Poolie goes to...

1. South Park (Comedy Central) 8 points (2nd)

This is South Park's third Poolie nomination and first win for best animated series.

What a coincidence...the first time I watched a full season of South Park, it wins its first Poolie!  I still enjoy Family Guy more, but South Park definitely has its moments.  The entire superhero plot of last season had me in stitches most of the time.  It's been on for years and years, but I can see Trey Parker and Matt Stone going for many more if the quality continues.

The Flintstones Award- Best Animated Series

Named For: The Flintstones (ABC) 1960-66
Awarded To: Best animated series from June 1, 2009 - May 31, 2010
Last Year's Winner: Family Guy (FOX)

Place. Show (Network) Points (My Vote)

5. Archer (FX) 4 points (3rd)

4. The Simpsons (FOX) 6 points

3. The Ricky Gervais Show (HBO) 6 points (1st)

Runner-Up
2. South Park (Comedy Central) 12 points

and the Poolie goes to...
1. Family Guy (FOX) 15 points (2nd)

Family Guy is what it is. It was once ridiculously hilarious. It is now ridiculously hilarious, in spurts. Whether McFarlane and company have spread themselves too thin through three animated series, or they've just run out of jokes for certain characters, Family Guy has slid in its quality.

Oh, this is supposed to be a positive review right? Well Family Guy is still funny. Between Peter and Stewie you have two of the funniest characters on tv right there. It's just too bad that the schtick has worn thin on me. The wild tangents and constant allusions have gotten tiresome. Shoot! Did it again.

Yeah sure it's not that stacked of a category, but it should still be proud of this win. I think the second Star Wars spoof helped its cause quite a bit...at least in getting my second place vote. Something, Something, Something Dark Side wasn't as good as Blue Harvest, but this Star Wars fan will tell you that Empire Strikes Back isn't as good as the original Star Wars so they had less to work with. Yeah, yeah. I know what you're saying. Empire Strikes Back is well known as the best Star Wars movie. Agree to disagree. Back to the matter at hand. The season finale was a great punctuation on a subpar season, as their full fledged parodies are always better than trying to fit a bunch of spoofs inside of one ep.

The Flintstones Award (2009)

The Flintstones Award for Best Animated Series

Rank. Show- Total Points...(My Rank)
5th. King of the Hill- 0 points

4th. American Dad- 7 points...(2nd)

3rd. The Simpsons- 13 points...(3rd)

Runner-Up
2nd. South Park- 22 points

The Poolie Goes To
1st. Family Guy- 28 points...(1st)
And with no guest spot here I am with some insight...

I don't know what was going on at the turn of the century to cause Fox to cancel Family Guy, but it must have been nuts. Seth MacFarlane created the funniest animated television series since Snagglepuss graced us with his gay lisp of a voice on Saturday mornings. Sure the plot of
every episode is ridiculous, but I'm not watching my animated sitcoms for structure. I'm watching Family Guy for non-stop attempts at the funny.

Season seven saw a lot of that with a pure gem of a second episode. When Peter takes the family to a 50s diner 'Surfin Bird' by The Trashmen comes on the Juke Box and nothing but comedy gold ensues. Nothing this season has been better than when Peter buys the record for himself and plays it over and over again.

South Park

So I've never been a South Park guy, but have enjoyed the bits and pieces that I've seen. Lochness told me he could never watch family guy after seeing the South Park ep when they destroyed Fam Guy. I finally got around to watching the two Cartoon Wars episodes and here's what I think. The point they were trying to make is that Family Guy is all about random jokes that don't have to do with the running plot of the ep. Who cares? Do I need to have every joke relate to the overall plot of an episode of a cartoon comedy? The answer is definitely no! Each ep of Fam Guy has a story line and the fact that they are completely random doesn't take away from the ep for me. Sure there are a lot of flashes to 'times Peter did something in the past,' but I feel that is part of its charm. After finishing with these eps I watched a bunch more and came to terms with the fact that South Park is definitely not close to Family Guy in comedy. It sure does have all of their jokes involved with the plot of the ep, so they got that goin' for them.

On a side note, I watched one of Lar's favorite South Park eps. The South Park kids are playing Little League baseball but want to lose in the playoffs because they are tired of playing baseball because it's boring. They try as hard as they can to lose and finally end up losing by disqualification in the state championship, and boy are they happy. This episode always came up at the end of our basketball seasons when we were tired of playing ball and wanted to have more time to watch tv and bro out.