Today I’m particularly adamant about getting rid of negativity, so it seems appropriate to write about something that’s been bugging me for a long time.

It appears to me that a lot of American sitcoms and also cartoons base their “fun” almost entirely on putting down fellow cast members. Extreme examples of this would be Everybody Loves Raymond (particularly the Raymond’s mum and dad), and from longer ago Roseanne (Roseanne Barr being the cynical expert on this dubious artform), and Married with Children (everybody).

Mind you, I’ve long stopped watching any such TV shows along with most others, but the references are still abundant. Situations can be funny, people can be funny, and you can even laugh at a person, but it doesn’t have to be at their expense. In a nutshell, I reckon the person being laughed at should be able to laugh about it also – that seems like a good test. I think Seinfeld did this well, as did Friends. Funny definitely doesn’t need to come in snipey ad-hominem attacks.

Phoebe doesn’t care that much for watching TV anyway most of the time, but if I catch any cartoon doing this negative approach to being funny, I tell MythTV to not record it any more.  Kids will mimic and it’s just not a good example.