I’ve been feeling down lately and I started re-watching futurama for some good nostalgia, but it keeps making transphobic jokes which is kind of just making me feel worse. Anyone have any suggestions for comfort shows to watch?
To add what has already been mentioned: She-Ra and Steven Universe.
Steven, especially the first few seasons is super feel good low impact chill show.
Gravity falls is also pretty great for this.
Ted Lasso
Adventure time
Steven Universe
Out Flag Means Death
The Good Place
What We Do In The Shadows
Bluey!
It’s cute, it’s short, and it’s great for de-stressing! I put it on almost any time I’m feeling anxious or depressed
It’s written so wonderfully, and can be fully enjoyed by adults just as well as kids
Came here to say Bluey!! My partner and I (both grown ass adults) watch it together and cry tears of joy as we let it re-parent us!! Such a wonderful show!
They’re not fiction, but two that work for me are Great British Bake-Off and Taskmaster. The people on GBBO are so positive and helpful, it’s a welcome change from American cooking competitions. Taskmaster is creative and silly, always good for a laugh.
Second the recommendation of Ted Lasso. Ted is a wonderful example of a person who doesn’t understand something, knows he doesn’t understand, but his heart is in the right place and he wants to learn.
Series 15 of Taskmaster featured Mae Martin, a nonbinary comedian
They were fantastic as well!
The series with Mike Wozniak should be avoided unless you’re okay with passing out laughing.
The New Zealand version has a different dynamic, but I enjoy it as least as much as the OG.
Great Canadian Baking Show is similarly positive. Everyone is so nice it hurts! They often help each other finish challenges and it’s a competition show :)
Bake Off is pretty much pure comfort. It’s just perfect in every way.
The American version isn’t bad either. It avoids the worst of reality show tropes, and it still has Paul Hollywood, so not bad at all.
My ultimate comfort show is Star Trek: the Next Generation. If it’s just me in the house and nothing good in my video queue that’s what I’ll turn on for noise.
I don’t remember there being transphobic jokes in The Golden Girls, so maybe that?
There aren’t transphobic jokes as far as I remember but it does become mentioned as a plot point a few times, that for the time was pretty good but now it would be dated.
The example that comes to mind is (relatively mild but be wary) >! an episode where Sophia tells Dorothy about a guy that she insists “used to be a girl”, and Dorothy doesn’t believes her. Later in the episode the guy, in fact, comes out that “I used to be a girl” to a group of people, Dorothy surprised about that. !<
EDIT: found this https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/friends-of-dorothy-was-the-golden-girls-really-as-queer-friendly-as-its-reputation-suggests-213923/
Honestly groundbreaking for its time
Like @Froyn said, Bob’s Burgers is super cozy.
What transphobic jokes are in Futurama? I can’t seem to remember anything specific.
The Good Place is a great series.
Stranger Things perhaps.
Avatar Last Airbender and Legend of Korra
Bob’s Burgers
Futurama had that one Episode “Bend-Her” where bender decides they suck too much to compete in the mens robo-lympics so he gets gender reassignment to crush all the fembots and get a gold medal… If they made that full length episode, i’m sure there are plenty of one offs and side gags throughout that didn’t stick out to me at the time.
I hated that episode. That type of premise felt out of date when it was released.
It was surprising to me because they had a really early episode where Leela beat up her sensei really because he was sexist so it was so weird that “Bend-her” was a choice.
I’ve been rewatching Futurama and honestly there is a lot of jokes even in the first season that made me uncomfortable. Mostly sight gags of horribly depicted trans femmes played for laughs. I wouldn’t call it a safe show.
Bob’s was the first thing that popped to mind.
Here’s Marshmallow’s greatest hits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAnkDYwfhVs
Trailer Park Boys
My partner and I have been really enjoying Spy X Family. Its a nice little found family/comedy series with very wholesome content.
The premise is that the titular Spy has an assignment to make contact with a total shut-in who only appears in public for events at his son’s school. So the Spy adopts a child from a shady orphanage and meets a woman who is willing to fake being his wife to get his child into the elite school. Of course, the child he adopted can read minds and the woman he fake married is secretly an assassin. No one but the child knows the truth about everyone and they’re each so focused on hiding their own secrets they don’t catch on to the others. The series isn’t complete yet, but so far the major theme is them coming to genuinely value their little family as more than a convenient facade.
Its just such a cute show, and I go back and forth between cackling and tearing up at how cute they all are. The only thing I think is particularly off about the show is the assassins brother. He’s a secret police officer and also incestuously obsessed with his sister. Its a weird inclusion, but he is made fun of by the narrative for his behavior and that is enough for me to still enjoy how good the rest of the show is
My partner and I were going to rewatch Futurama soon, since we wanted to watch the old ones before getting into the reboot. I’m not going to enjoy that as much as I thought I would, am I?
As for recommendations, I don’t know if I would call it a comfort show since it can get really disturbing at times, but Doom Patrol is a great show, lots of fun and super queer.
Hearing Brendan Fraser swear kills me every time
I assume that you are in the US - and I don’t know if this is available- but the BBC show ‘The Detectorists’
You can use a VPN for BBC iPlayer. All you need to provide is a postcode for which you can use any random address
Just make sure you pay your TV license at tvlicensing.co.uk, other wise the license officers might pay you a visit and charge you a fine of £400 with their “TV detector” vans. /s
the deal is that bbc stops being institutionally transphobic and racist and ill pay my tv licence again :)
Oh heavens, you do what your conviction tells you, I’m just a cheeky American that grew up with RuneScape and an endless supply of British media that wanted to be in on the joke.
One of my favorite episodes of the Young Ones was when the TV license officer comes to inspect their house and they’re trying to hide the TV.
Well I thought that was self explanatory ;)
it’s on acorn if you have that too :)
pushing daisies!! ❤️❤️
also my so called life
oh and schmigadoon if you have apple tv :)
I’m sure you’ve already been through the usual suspects. So here’s my list. Hopefully some more esoteric ones will help out.
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Our Flag Means Death
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Star Trek: Lower Decks
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Los Espookys
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Good Omens
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Killjoys
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Black Mirror
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The Magicians
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The Umbrella Academy
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Sandman
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The Orville
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Farscape
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Love, Death, and Robots
Personally I would not consider ‘love, death and robots’ as ‘comfort’.
Neither is Black Mirror
That’s fair, I would though.
Black Mirror? That’s the only show I had to stop watching for my sanity, and I like some pretty dark stuff.
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It’s always a good choice to watch Avatar