I have come to the conclusion that Seth MacFarlane is a comedic genius. At least, I can assume as much in the absence of something truly definitive. I know almost nothing about the man, besides the fact that everything his name is connected with is serious funny. Family Guy, American Dad, Robot Chicken, Dexter's Laboratory, et cetera.

In order to really make me laugh out loud, you have to appeal to something directly between "sheer stupidity", "retro-pop-culture and/or significant history", "great insight", and "intellectual arguments". Its a hard place to hit. Too close to any one or two of those and it fails, getting filed under "sheer stupidity" by default, or "boring" if it has merit, ironically.

I'm a big fan of animation in general. If there was a visual medium I'd want to write for, animation would be it. Right now, as far as humor goes in that space, the MacFarlane crew is ruling with impunity. There is a philosophy buried within the funny, but its vague in all the right ways. Let there be irreverence, only let it have some clue. Let the message be in the eye of the beholder. Wink, muthafucker, wink.

MacFarlane and crew, kudos.

Seth MacFarlane (Wikipedia)