Discussion What TV show came the closest to being the successor of The Simpsons / South Park counterculture lineage?

[Yzz]

Even if you weren't born when The Simpsons was at its peak, you probably know that the show challenged the sanitized portrayal of the american family that was commonplace back then, ending up being some sort of counterculture icon. Around the time that The Simpsons was peaking, The Spirit of Christmas VHS (the predecessor to South Park), achieved viral status, with many describing its humor as something they had never experienced before. A few years later South Park started airing and tormented the world with unthinkable acts like saying swear words on TV, or claiming that being gay isn't a bad thing. The decade of the 1990s ended with these two shows being placed side-by-side as unique experiences that redefined what a TV show could say and be.

Both shows were very successful, so naturally networks and producers were interested in creating the next Simpsons / South Park, which resulted in a boom of 'irreverent' cartoons in the next decade. Despite these efforts, no other show ended up acquiring the cultural relevance of The Simpsons / South Park, which has left some sort of 'void' that has remained to this day.

Whether its animated or live-action, niche or super popular, what TV show(s) did you think had carried the same counterculture spirit of The Simpsons / South Park? or how do you think a modern version of these shows would be like?

 

[wakko]

"Beavis & Butthead" also played a huge role as a counterculture show.

Beavis & Butthead aired in 1993, roughly 4 years before South Park. It could be argued that Beavis & Butthead helped open doors for adult animated shows like "South Park" and "Family Guy".

Ren & Stimpy, which aired in 1991, was one of the most controversial kids shows of all time. With Ren & Stimpy, 1990s Nickelodeon gained a reputation for being a more rebellious kids network, compared to The Disney Channel.

 

[GamerJM]

I think there's probably a lineage of Simpsons -> South Park -> Family Guy -> Rick and Morty as the de facto pop culture adult animated show.

To answer the actual question about what became the de facto counterculture media after Simpsons and South Park, though, I think the idea of that being a TV show died after South Park pushed the boundaries of what you could even get away with on TV and mostly just started being edgelord libertarian shit after the first few seasons. The real "counterculture" moved online, to places like Newgrounds, Somethingawful, and eventually 4chan. I guess the end result of that lineage is the modern internet in general, and in terms of video content a lot of stuff on YouTube and TikTok. If you wanted to follow the lineage through just animation, then we'd limit it to Newgrounds, and in that case the end of that lineage would probably be Helluva Boss.

 

[Rooster]

I guess you could make the argument of Rick and Morty, though it doesn't aim to satirize culture in the same way The Simpsons and South Park did, it's more just the contemporary popular adult-oriented animated show. It more satirizes genre.

Maybe Bojack? Its tone and setting are different than the Simpsons and South Park, but its more culturally-skewing than Rick and Morty. It also never got nearly as big as the former two.

I don't think there's a clear parallel. I think nowadays it would be harder to create something that seems non-partisan in how it lampoons and pushes back equally against the various prevailing ideologies, yet wants to retain its subversive edge.

 

[boodream]

"Beavis & Butthead" also played a huge role as a counterculture show.

Beavis & Butthead aired in 1993, roughly 4 years before South Park. It could be argued that Beavis & Butthead helped open doors for adult animated shows like "South Park" and "Family Guy".

Ren & Stimpy, which aired in 1991, was one of the most controversial kids shows of all time. With Ren & Stimpy, 1990s Nickelodeon gained a reputation for being a more rebellious kids network, compared to The Disney Channel.

Family Guy is the chemically pure opposite of any form of counterculture.

Daria, of course!

 

[Mekanos]

I think Always Sunny comes closest in terms of irreverence, and Family Guy in terms of popularity. But since South Park we've had the internet so I think people are much more desensitized to shock humor (which was moreso South Park's bread and butter than Simpsons).

If anything the script has flipped since the turn of the century; you now see right-wingers championing being as offensive and vulgar as possible, and left-wing people moreso discussing the nuances and issues regarding portrayal of sensitive subjects in television. I also think saying South Park pushed the concept of "it's okay to be gay" is, while not wrong per se, a bit of a snapshot of the larger picture. South Park I would argue was a big part of the budding millennial reactionary movement, where people saw it as a show that validated their entitlement and refusal to accept change. That isn't to say the show was never funny or insightful, but its main goal was to push the limits on what they could say and do (whereas the Simpsons was never necessarily about that, but more directly a satire of the nuclear family and 20th century Americana as a whole).

This sorta sums up how I feel about South Park nowadays: