My apologies then...
I just assumed quoting family guy meant you enjoyed family guy. Either way, I get more laughs out of 1 episode of 2.5 men then I did out of the entire last season of Family Guy, and the ones before that too actually. It peaked at the end of season 2 basically.
I believe Family Guy was only good in Season's 1-3 because it loosely based most of it's storytelling on The Simpsons. Combined with it's unique brand of humour and it was one of the better animated comedies on television. The problem was after they were taken off the air the fans blew smoke up the writers ass who decided to continually push the envelope until they left us with the disgrace that is the current Family Guy. I can barely make it through an episode anymore, I don't understand how anyone over the age of 16 can either.
American Dad is a little bit more tolerable BUT it's far too inconsistent to be considered a good animated television show.
With the recent announcement of a new Futurama season I hope the writers don't fellow Seth MacFarlene's lead and treats viewers with the same respect they did for the first four seasons. Sadly the movies seem to suggest otherwise...but I hold some hope.
Back to topic and I know the formula is succesful, that's why I stated as such BF. However that doesn't make Two and a Half Man a good sit-com, rather a 'smart' sit-com that know's it's audience very well and knows what will 'get the laughs'. When it's all said and done though I believe other sit-coms of this era, the one's that Misanthrope brought up will be recall much more fondly. In fact, while it isn't the greatest show on television I believe How I Met Your Mother is one of the most innovative sit-coms in a long time and the character of Barney Stinson is quite possibly one of the best in Sit-Com history. The amount of freedom that character has is incredible and the ability of the writers to keep feeding him line after line and put him through a number of perfectly crafted scenario's is brilliant. The rest of the cast is generally bland with moments of brilliance (Robin's Teenage Pop Idol phase being among favourites) but ultimately the show from it's format to it's story telling just works.
As others have pointed out, Two and a Half Men is exactly like Married...With Children except unlike Married...With Children Two and a Half Men isn't a pioneer nor does it reach the levels of hilarity Married...With Children did.
Just another question but did anybody rate Frasier on these boards? While the story may of thrown a few people off I thought the show was generally strong through out it's 11 year run and it was quite possibly one of the best sit-coms of all time.
