Cartoons

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I don't have much to say. Also, I'm busy with work and tired after work. And lazy. But I've been wanting to discuss animated series (or "cartoons," for those that don't give a damn about "sophisticated" titles) for a while, so I figured I'd make a post about them. And by "discuss," I of course mean "bitch about and praise."

This show belongs in the shitter.

First up is Allen Gregory, which premiered on Fox in October of last year and has (thankfully) been canceled. It will hopefully never shame the world of television with its presence ever again.

I watched the premiere of this show, because I've always been a fan of prime-time cartoons, and I like to give them a shot. I avoided The Cleveland Show when it premiered only to find out during its second season that it was a pretty good show, as long as you didn't expect anything from it. I didn't want to make the same mistake. Besides, Fox wouldn't shut up about the damn show, airing promos for it months before it premiered. I had to see what it was all about.

It was offensive. On several levels. First of all, it wasn't funny. At all. It simply did not elicit laughter. But if that was all, then the show would just be another boring failure. No, Allen Gregory had other problems. It was a lame premise with an even lamer execution (and what an odd execution it was); a smart little boy has to go to a public school filled with, shudder, regular kids. Typical fish out of water story, right? Except Allen Gregory, the titular character, isn't actually a smart little boy. He's incredibly dumb, as a matter of fact. The show wasn't "Fraiser goes to elementary school," which it was marketed as. It was "insufferable asshole pisses off everyone around him." Allen acted like an adult but only in that he pretended to be an adult, by mimicking the things his father did. His father did fancy stuff like eat sushi for lunch, so that's what Allen did. That's as far as his maturity went. Otherwise, Allen was an annoying little kid that didn't fit in, something a lot of people can relate to. But instead of relating with the bastard, you hate him, because he doesn't try to fit in or be nice, at all. In the end, you feel bad for Allen because you can understand what it's to be picked on and have embarrassing things happen to you, but you also want him to get beat the fuck up, because he's the kind of kid that makes your life a living hell on purpose and has no regard for you whatsoever. It's impossible to love the character or even love to hate him, the way you might Mr. Burns or Peter Griffin. That's bad enough, but then the creators decided to toss in the gross factor and have Allen, a seven-year-old boy, fall in love with the principle of his school, a very old, very overweight, and very uninterested woman. She is not a bad person, but there is no reason why a little boy would fall in love with her, and the show doesn't even try to make sense of it. Allen simply sees her and somehow loses his mind. It's disturbing, the fantasies Allen has about her are exceedingly gross (so as to not even be funny), and the whole thing is disgraceful.

But the biggest problem, and what really made the show offensive, was the living situation of Allen's parents. Allen has two dads; that's right, a gay couple raising a child in a cartoon. Finally! Except they're not really a gay couple. I'll explain that in a moment.

Richard is Allen's biological father. Jeremy is Richard's husband. As his name suggests, Richard is a real dick. He's a selfish pain in the ass that ignores others and only cares about getting his own way. Jeremy puts up with Richard, for seemingly no reason, and is an all-around nice and cool guy. Allen takes after his father in nearly every way and, of course, also treats Jeremy like shit.

More than halfway through the first episode, we get a bombshell. Jeremy explains that he "used" to be a straight man, with a wife and kids. Then he came across Richard, who fell in love with him. Richard stalked him and badgered him so much that Jeremy left his family and became Richard's husband. That's right, Jeremy isn't actually gay. He never says anything about having gay thoughts or hiding his sexuality. The way it's explained, Jeremy is a straight man who just gave in to Richard's pestering. Do I need to explain why that is offensive, not just to gay people but to everybody? One of the few gay couples on TV, one of the only gay couples to ever be seen in a cartoon, and only one of them is actually gay. Not to mention how insulting that is to the audience's intelligence. Are we really supposed to believe that a man is going to give up his wife, his children, just to get an asshole off his back? And up his asshole? That's insane. I think that's what really offends me, that the man leaves his children to live an unsatisfying life with an insane bastard. His children are asking, "Where's daddy?" and all their mother can say is, "He's with a man he doesn't love, living a lie, for no fucking reason at all."

So, thanks for nothing, Allen Gregory! You were inexcusable.

Pretty mind-numbing, in a good way

Next is Napoleon Dynamite, the movie-turned-cartoon that arrived eight years after the movie. Long before this show started, I hated it. I didn't care much for the movie, which is boring and odd in ways that did not please or interest me, and I didn't see how it could translate to the world of television, let alone a cartoon, at all. I watched the first two episodes, which premiered the same night, to give it a shot and wasn't impressed. I watched the next episode out of boredom, and . . .

It was great. I can't explain it, except that the premiere episodes, especially the very first episode, weren't very good, but another factor may have been that I watched the third episode without any expectations, good or bad. The other four episodes of the season are all top-notch and made me laugh a ton.

Part of what's good about the series is that it isn't like the movie at all. The characters are all there, but they're not doing boring things with blank faces. They're doing crazy shit, like racing beds and pointing guns at each other and fighting ghosts. Yes, there is a ghost in one episode, and the characters try to fight him. I'm sure part of the reason for this, and the show's quality, is that Mike Scully is involved. Scully has worked on The Simpsons, and the years he was involved in the show were the years that Bart's t-shirt incited a riot, Homer wanted to have as a villain a shifty-eyed dog, and a busload of kids got stranded on a desert island, where they would be "damn hell ass kings!"Scully makes things crazy, and it's good for a cartoon. It keeps the viewer interested, and it takes advantage of the fact that with animation, you can do things that cannot be done with live-action.

I really like this Napoleon Dynamite. Instead of taking pity on the characters, I like them and wouldn't mind hanging out with them. They're not annoying or pathetic. Napoleon himself gets quite a change; he actually seems badass in the series, instead of being just an awkward boy that puts on airs. I hope the show gets renewed and does well. It's time Fox has something in their animation domination that isn't The Simpsons or made by Seth MacFarlane. And yes, Bob's Burgers is great, but Fox seems intent to not show new episodes of it when airing new episodes of everything else.

Damn, I can write a lot, can't I? Maybe next time I'll actually write about something of import. Like The Simpsons.