I just realised something.
American Dad is now doing jokes and storylines similar to those The Simpsons was doing around Seasons 5-10 (or thereabouts). The Simpsons are now doing jokes and storylines more like those Family Guy was doing in the early seasons. And Family Guy – well, I’m not entirely sure what they’re doing, but it’s still funny.
For Me, American Dad has been getting funnier, and the storylines have always been very coherent. They have purposely avoided non sequiturs and cutaways (those were Family Guy’s domain anyway), so they had to make good storylines, and good jokes often arise from that.
The Simpsons is a mixed bag. Yes the animation on the first few seasons may have been awful, but the stories were good, so I’ve learned to see beyond that. I’ve found myself really enjoying mid-series seasons as, like American Dad, they had good storylines, and were interesting to watch. The latter seasons have just veered off into total randomness. Bart has gone from being a brat to being plain evil at times, Homer lurches between being dumb and being vaguely intelligent, and Lisa would in real-life probably be heading towards a nervous breakdown. Marge seems to have mellowed a lot though, whilst Maggie has suddenly gotten very intelligent (almost aping Stewie from Family Guy in some respects).
As for Family Guy, I think the last couple of seasons have consisted of mostly excellent episode, then some horribly structured, somewhat pointless episodes, with gags which felt more like filler than something dragged out for comedic value. The cutaways to Conway Twitty are pointless now. It was funny at first, now it just feels like a bit of an up-yours. Then again, the Star Wars special episode was spot-on, and the episode where Peter has a stroke was too funny.
But then again, comedy is very subjective. I don’t find Southpark funny, and others I know do, so maybe some of these things I don’t find funny have others rolling in laughter.
Who knows!