[gdy]

'I think it was prompted by your uncharitable criticism'

Yep, it's only fair.

'nor context of the palmetieri2000 post (he wanted to illustrate that it _can_ be that comical) was about that'

What is 'it' in 'it _can_ be that comical'?

Here I disagree with you -- I interpret 'it can't be that cartoonish' as a reply to 'culture-wide thing' statement. A subculture can be arbitrarily weird, but when a sweeping statement is made about the whole nation it becomes cartoonish.

In this context bringing up a game review is as a valid point as bringing up Manhunt or Postal in a thread about American-wide culture.