Gordon Richmond wrote:
William Sommerwerck wrote:
Television worth watching,
The Soparanos, Mythbusters, and The Simpsons/King of the
Hill/South Park, to name just a handful of great shows.
My point was about "television worth watching".
Well, "worth watching" and "great shows" must be a matter of personal
opinion...

I'm not a particularly religious person and certainly not a member of
the "Religious Right" (and will gladly swear like a sailor when called
for), but IMHO, South Park is, for lack of a better term, quite
degenerate. Talk about morality "sliding down the slippery slope", that
show seems to have to slid down to just about the bottom of said slope.

A large majority of the "popular" network shows are infantile. Had a TV
on the bench a year or so ago, can't remember the name of the show but
my wife said it was one of the top two or three.

On the show, they were talking about having attended a lecture about
"homo erectus".

First actor: "He said homo". Tee-hee, giggle giggle, canned laughter

Second actor: "Oh, he said erect". Tee-hee, giggle giggle, canned laughter

Maybe that's funny--if you're in the Third Grade.

Sorry, but IMHO, a large majority of network TV is truly mindless pap.

You're welcome to your opinion, but if you think this is the Golden (or
Platinum) Age of TV, then I've got some nice Florida land I'd like to
sell to you... :-)

Well, I'm not a big fan of TV in general, or South Park in particular,

nor am I

but I've seen
enough episodes of the show to understand that it relentlessly SATIRIZES political
correctness and wishy-washy Liberalism and immorality.

But I also know that some people just don't "get" satire.

Well, I'm not sure if that was a "shot" at me or not grin...but I get
and enjoy satire as well as the next person.

But it -is- interesting (and dare I say, ironic) that you feel they need
to use "utter vulgarity" and "outrageous tastelessness" to satirize
immorality. I still contend that is purely gratuitous and a few more
steps down the slippery slope.

But it -is- interesting (and dare I say, ironic) that you feel they
need to use "utter vulgarity" and "outrageous tastelessness"
to satirize immorality. I still contend that is purely gratuitous
and a few more steps down the slippery slope.

Potentially. But it's obvious (to me, anyway) that "South Park" is largely
serious about what it does. I think most viewers agree, and don't see the
program as _promoting_ gratuitous tastelessness or vulgarity. It's so over
the top, anyway, that it would be hard to "improve" on it, even if one
wanted to.

In fairness to your point of view, there's an early episode -- "Pink Eye" --
involving the conversion of people to zombies after being injected with a
particular condiment (I forget which). It's hilariously gross, merely for
the sake of being gross. Then, of course, there was the gratuitous weekly
death of Kenny, which was eventually -- uh -- killed, due to its no longer
being particularly funny -- and their running out of ideas of how to off
him.

There was an episode in which the S word is spoken (though bleeped) several
hundred times, resulting in the appearance of a highly destructive demon.
After that, "South Park" no longer uses that word. (Correct me if I'm wrong
on this.) I don't think the creators were being hypocritical or self-serving
in suggesting that this word is not needed in everyday speech.

"South Park" is one of those TV programs that makes you glad freedom of
speech is protected in this country.

PS: Stan Freberg was a master at offending people with G-rated material.

Carter-k8vt wrote:

But it -is- interesting (and dare I say, ironic) that you feel they
need to use "utter vulgarity" and "outrageous tastelessness"
to satirize immorality. I still contend that is purely gratuitous
and a few more steps down the slippery slope.

William Sommerwerck wrote:

Potentially. But it's obvious (to me, anyway) that "South Park" is largely
serious about what it does.

Well, I'm not sure what their "it" is...although pushing us a bit
further down the slippery slope comes to mind.

I think most viewers agree, and don't see the
program as _promoting_ gratuitous tastelessness or vulgarity.

I don't see how you can separate the "promoting" from whatever else they
are attempting to do.

PS: Stan Freberg was a master at offending people with G-rated material.

Which proves that it CAN be done without resorting to trash talk. Back
when men were men and it was the REAL Golden Age. ;-)

Again, it looks like we can agree to disagree...

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:42:49 -0400, Carter-k8vt
wrote:

PS: Stan Freberg was a master at offending people with G-rated material.

Which proves that it CAN be done without resorting to trash talk. Back
when men were men and it was the REAL Golden Age. ;-)

I think that, given the dumbing-down of the populace through
government controlled education, if there were someone of Freberg's
talent, there would not be a large enough audience of people who would
understand him.


Brian McAllister

Sarasota, Florida

email bkm at oldtech dot net