What the fuck is a cartoon.

No. Explaining cheap animation tricks AS A JOKE isn't the same thing as EXPLAINING A JOKE.

The delivery it kind of unsubtle, but it's clearly making a point of not being subtle, so it doesn't fail, and the cheap tricks that they point up are very real and familiar, so as observational humor, I think it's pretty sharp.

I just noticed the date, and I'm very impressed. This was 10 years before the Simpsons and MST3K, and maybe 25 years before "TV FunHouse"

The explicitness of the joke makes a lot more sense.in that context. Maybe it was different in Britain, but in America at least, I think we're all a lot more plugged into this kind of pop culture referencing than we were 38 years ago.

You're probably right that they needed to explain the joke back then, so the writers didn't "do it wrong". But it does mean that this clip didn't age all that well. It's kinda like Mel Brooks' stuff. Sure, some of his bits hold up really well. (e.g. most of Blazing Saddles) But I rewatched History of the World the other night, and it was painful. And that used to be one of my favorite movies! His Borscht Belt Vaudeville roots really show, and they're from a previous, largely irrelevant & outdated, era.

Yup

With Mel Brooks movies, you start getting the idea it was all lazy material elevated by a handful of talent regular leads like Gene Wilder.

Come to think of it, what's a single well-aged Mel Brooks movie without Gene Wilder?

I can think of several Mel Brooks films WITH Gene Wilder that haven't aged well.

Here's the deal with Mel Brooks. He made Blazing Saddles, and for that we should all kill his ass. And if he made a dozen other unforgettable movies...AND HE DID...what of that? BLAZING SADDLES is the definitive sendup of America, and the racist myth making that justified and alibied the great American crime. But remember SILENT MOVIE? Me neither.

Nah.... let's not start slagging Mel Brooks. He really was a master of his craft. It's just... he's now largely irrelevant. And that's a shame, because it means people (including me) can't enjoy a lot of his work anymore.

>>>> the SJW reboot of MST3K

Okay, fuck you for that.

>>>Less is more.

Well, sometimes. If less was ALWAYS more, NOTHING would be EVERYTHING, right? But there has to be SOMETHING.

Observational humor is observations. You're not exposing the joke, the joke is you're explaining the world. If you don't think that the old MST3K did that, you're misremembering. Think of all those invention exchanges.

Except it's not observational humor in the SJW reboot.
It's trying to explain the joke before the joke is delivered. Remember what the Joker once said? If you have to explain the joke, there is no joke.

It's OK, dude. We understood you.