I would disagree. the (sameish) stop motion gag for instance didn't make fun of stop motion, I think actually made people more aware of how hard it is (you can't just spend a month / weekend & come up with something good: it actually takes a lot of effort + skill).
That's a whole other discussion, unfortunately! Very often those games sell purely because people want the miniatures to paint or to use in other games such as D&D. The game doesn't even need to be good.