Next year, “The Simpsons” will have been on the air twenty years. This makes it the longest running prime time sitcom in history, and quite obviously the longest running animated sitcom. The Flintstones were long ago left in the dust and ‘rubble’. The fact that The Simpsons IS a cartoon either makes their twenty year running even more astonishing, or more sensical. Could you imagine if Malcom in the Middle had run for twenty years? There would be a sweeps episode of the boys mourning the loss of their dear mother by that point. If That 70’s Show had lasted twenty years, Eric Forman would be watching Frasier right now, while Kelso played with Pogs.

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The fact of the matter is that many people will flatly state that the success of The Simpsons has nothing to do with the fact that it is animated. The lengthy duration is because of the fact that the show regularly employs some of the best writers that can be found in television. It wasn’t the first animated program, but it was the first to employ the freshest and funniest minds cherrypicked from schools like Harvard, in order to create something that, animated or not, brought comedy writing to a new level.

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It was only after the Bart Mania of the first couple seasons cooled that people really started to see The Simpsons as a brilliant satire of the modern nuclear family. Nobody expected to find sharp social commentary on a crudely drawn cartoon, but here was a show with enough hilarious broad gags to appeal to the masses while still having deeper jokes and references that helped to make it a show that could be literally enjoyed by everybody. When the cast of voice actors were invited to appear on Inside the Actors Studio, James Lipton praised the show as having the greatest writing in the history of television. Lipton isn’t exactly shy about handing out praise, but he had a point. Here was a show that, at its peak, was unreachable by any other show in terms of writing.

Other studios, seeing the commercial and critical fawning over these yellow creatures, decided they wanted in on the ink and paint club. For a few years in the early nineties, horrible animated dreck filled prime time, with shows like Fish Police and Capitol Critters. If you don’t remember them, don’t feel bad. The creators would probably rather you not anyways. During this time, a few live-action sitcoms were coming into their own, thanks to good writing. There was Frasier, Friends, and Roseanne, which had yet to begin its epic downfall. The people behind these failed cartoons realized that writing is the foundation that makes a show truly great.

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It seemed for a while that the Simpsons would be the only prime-time cartoon to ever make it, but now we have quite a few success stories. Take King of the Hill. Created by a few Simpsons writers of yore, and the man behind Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill was the first true successful cartoon in the post-Simpson era. Once again, writing came down to it. Avoiding a Simpson-like style, King of the Hill chose to create a unique style of comedy that is infinitely more subtle than even nearly every live-action show. The comedy is based largely on the characters. This is an incredibly hard style of comedy to write, because you can’t allow your stars to break character. King of the Hill is now 12 years old, which is astonishing. These two programs frequently win emmys for writing, and are considered some of the finest work of any programming in the past two decades.

Shortly after King of the Hill debuted, Comedy Central unleashed on the world a cute little show about kids called South Park. South Park wasn’t exactly as subtle as King of the Hill but it does parallel The Simpsons in some neat ways. Both have first seasons that were released to much fanfare, but now when you watch them, the animation is dreadful and the jokes generally suck ass. South Park is one of the most surprising shows to come out in a long time, because most people gave it a couple years of life before the schtick got old. But South Park reinvented itself as, get this, a timely and sharp political satire. South Park episodes only take days to make. This is how they can get away with parodying something that just happened a week ago, something no other cartoon is capable of doing. This gives it an insanely long idea well, since there will always be current events to mock. This also is a curse because when the show is too timely, the episodes lose luster as years pass. Does anyone really give a shit about a show making fun of the 2000 election? Or Janet Jacksons wardrobe malfunction.

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There you have it. Three cartoons with three distinct writing styles. A program that skewers politics and celebrity, and also features talking shit. A character-driven ode to middle america that is so subtle and deep that it remains the only cartoon that could just as easily be filmed as live-action, and a multi-level social satire that helped reinvent modern comedy. These cartoons are incredibly popular with the 18 to 35 male AND female set. A huge percentage of people in their twenties watch the show, and finally people are realizing that is isn’t because adults like cartoons. Adults like brilliant writing.

There is one other cartoon that is enjoying insane amounts of success in recent years. This is Family Guy. Family Guy is arguably more popular than any of these other three powerhouses, and is one of Fox’s highest rated programs. The show started out as kind of a Simpsons rip-off, with a dumb dad, a level-headed wife, a son, a daughter, and a baby. The show quickly created its own style, though. It employed what are sometimes called a cut-away. It involves a character reminiscing about something they experienced in the past, and then revealing the event in a funny way. The Simpsons actually invented this, but it took Family Guy to run it into the ground. People love the show for this, but there is a growing backlash against it, with more and more people hating the show. A lot of these people include the creators and writers of the aforementioned three cartoons.

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One would think there’d be a camaraderie among cartoon writers and producers, but again, it isn’t about the animation. Its about the writing. These people, who each have their distinctive forms of comedy, equate Family Guy with the lowest and most simple form of comedy: Gag writing. Instead of jokes that are relevant to the story and further the plot, Family guy simply writes interchangeable cut-aways and pointless quips that have nothing to do with the story. Most episodes have the barest of plots, and most end with no resolution. The creators of South Park even went as far as to make a two-part episode that basically attacked Family Guy for its use of Gag comedy. Many people associated with these other cartoons have gone on record saying that Family Guy is the worst animated sitcom ever, and an insult to the craft. Some have called it the ‘death of comedy’. Another comedic style FG employs is the use of pop-culture references. This is where they simply refer to pop-culture icon of the recent past for no reason. It is said that people will laugh if they are reminded of something in the recent past that they haven’t thought about in a while. Family Guy fills its episodes with mentions of ’80s sitcoms and obscure actors. This is also considered one of the easiest ways to get a cheap laugh.

Animated sitcoms are arguably at their most popular. They frequently are considered the funniest and most well-written programming every year. The fact of the matter is that the creative forces behind the shows put writing far ahead of animation, and use the fact that it is drawn in order to take comedy to new levels that aren’t possible with live-action. Don’t think because these people make cartoons that they are not serious about their craft. There is a cartoon war going on as we speak, and though it is because of the pen, it has nothing to do with the drawings.