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Not quite what you're asking for, because this one I can at least stand to watch, but Futurama was one of the biggest "I'm not impressed but know people who adore it" pieces of media for me.
I've liked past Matt Groening stuff. I liked Life is Hell. I liked (earlier) The Simpsons stuff.
I've sat next to people who crack up while watching Futurama.
But I don't think I've ever chuckled at the humor in Futurama. It throws out a series of jokes that just don't make me chuckle at all.
That being said, I haven't watched it for some time, so I haven't seen the newer stuff.
That's funny, I'm the exact opposite. I grew up never getting why people liked the Simpsons, but Futurama is one of the funniest, most entertaining, and most moving shows I've seen.
It’s very much a Gen-X nostalgia bucket.
I do agree that it's full of cultural references and that lacking it would probably detract from it, but even so, I just don't see how someone having that context makes the jokes funny.
One example I had in mind was when I brought up the fact that I just didn't really find the jokes funny even through some people really did laugh. At the time, the show was showing some robots trying to pack boxes and they kept failing, because when they put them together, they'd eliminate them, in an allusion to Tetris. That is, indeed, a Gen-X reference. The guy I was watching it with was chortling. I remember asking him about it and him saying "it's hilarious!"
I mean...I get the reference there. I've owned a couple versions of Tetris. I played it back when the game was young. But...even having the cultural context, it's just...there's none of the stuff that make something funny for me there. I just look at it and say "yeah, they're alluding to Tetris." Maybe it's that there's not enough buildup or something.
I remember some episode when a bunch of hippies are protesting outside Professor Farnsworth's house. The Professor tells them to get off his property. A hippie says "You can't own property, man!" The Professor says, "You can't, because you're a penniless hippie!" I mean...I'm not offended by it poking fun at communism, but...I see the political conflict there, but it just doesn't make me laugh. Or the Dr. Zoidberg humor, which in significant part is him acting inappropriately...I dunno. It's hard to figure out precisely what makes humor work for people
if we did, we could probably produce it a lot more mechanically
but whatever the writing team did just...consistently didn't tickle it for me.
Same. I used to watch Futurama a lot and I usually found it amusing, but I never made any audible noises of enjoyment.
There was a fantasy series that was kind of the same. It never got better than "mildly amusing" for me.
If you didnt laugh at futurama you didnt laugh at the simpsons. Even the early ones. You may have been a child that was giggling at the colors or that a catoon was on at night but you werent listenting to the punch lines at the time.