I love watching comedies when I’m in school. It allows me to check out mentally on those days when I feel like I can’t seem to turn off my brain. Although I am looking for thoughtless fluff, I still want to avoid straight-up terrible writing and plots. This makes my comedy search a little more difficult. Luckily, John and I came across Galavant, which provides what I am looking for in at least the following five ways.
1.It’s funny, without being offensive
I hate Seth MacFarlane. Just don’t like the guy at all. Yet his form of humour (i.e. let’s see how far we can push the line without getting in too much trouble) seems to dominate contemporary comedy. There certainly have been times when I have laughed at Family Guy or American Dad, but more often than not they leave me with a sour taste in my mouth.
One of the only gif’s from Family Guy that made me laugh instead of cringe.
I still want something that will surprise me into laughing out loud, but I don’t want to only ever be surprised because the punch line was too offensive for me to be expecting it.
Unlike McFarlane’s shows, Galavant is all about pushing around puns and being- well, for lack of a better word- silly. After being bombarded with jokes that make fun of real life trauma, it’s nice to be able to laugh at something because it’s just silly.
It’s different
Shows like Family Guy and American Dad have never been my cup of tea. More often than not, the shows I end up watching are funny because of the situations the main characters constantly stumble into. It’s no secret that many of these comedies follow the basic blueprint laid down by Friends. While this style of sitcom is pretty enjoyable, I am starting to get tired of the will-they/won’t-they element that tends to dominate the plot (I’m looking at you, How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, and The Mindy Project).
It’s also rare to see a comedy set in any time period other than our own. Futurama is the only recent TV comedy I can think of that didn’t have a contemporary setting.
It’s a musical
I love musicals. I also love watching people with beautiful voices make fun of musicals. Enough said.
Also, how hilarious is it that they put sing-along versions of their songs on YouTube?
It has regular cameos
Within the first few episodes Galavant has hosted John Stamos as a sassy knight in eyeliner who used too many “your-mom” jokes,
Weird Al as a monk who has taken a vow of singing,
and Ricky Gervais as the wizard Xanax.
I’m looking forward to seeing more unexpected visitors in future episodes.
It’s (relatively) diverse
We talk a lot about diversity in movies and TV shows here on the blog, so even with my guilty-pleasure shows I want to watch something that offers roles to non-white actors.
I won’t pretend Galavant is the most diverse cast you will encounter on TV right now (especially since it is named after its white protagonist), but I like that it doesn’t use the medieval genre as an excuse to whitewash its cast.
Despite Galavant’s role as the main protagonist, episodes so far have given just as much attention, if not more, to Isabella (Karen David)’s backstory and perspective. While Sid (Luke Youngblood) did have one episode dedicated to his backstory, I would like to see him take less of a “third-wheel” role in future episodes.
If you are anything like me, you might enjoy relaxing to a few episodes of the ridiculous tomfoolery they call Galavant. If you have already seen it, I’d love to hear from you. What did you think? Is there anything I’ve missed that made you love (or hate) the show?
Culture War Reporters 
You speak of “whitewashing” a cast because of Medieval Europe. Its not whitewashing, it’s historical fact that 98% of people in Europe during the Dark Ages, Medieval and the Renaissance were predominantly “white.” The only “non-whites” were Moors or the slaves that the Moors sold to the German Emperor that were “not white.” Moors are Muslim slave traders, and tried to force themselves and their religion on Europe, then Europe kicked their asses during the Crusades. So no, it’s not Hollywood using excuses to have “white” people in lead roles, it’s historical data telling Hollywood that there weren’t a lot of “non-white” people in Europe at the time. But this is also a fantasy, you can make up rules in fantasy, and it Just so happened that the people that chose were talented people. Do stop bellyaching about too many “white” people, it’s racist.