I know, I know. I'm the harbinger of ill prognostication. I'm not usually that guy. I'm usually the cheerleader. And I love cartoons for adults. Just watched a couple Family Guy eps for fun.
(Not that I usually watch the show as a matter of national security, you know, to hear the coded messages in Peter's farts. But I digress.)
After doing some homework, this show doesn't feel right to me. The source material is an Australian live action sitcom that ran for only 13 episodes. Before it even ran in Australia it was aired in the UK, which leads me to believe that someone thought it was shit and passed on it.
Then today I'm at the Fox press site trolling around for new content (you know, because I love you guys - awww!) and I started noticing the names of the characters on the show.
Names like Sue Sezno, Stuart Prozackian, Helen Klench.
Miracle Grohe? Yes, Miracle Grohe. That's Kristin Chenoweth's role. Gee, think she's the blonde with the rack? Do ya?
I groaned (Grohe-nd). Audibly. Homer heard me and groaned back (he's almost 11, he's allowed to groan these days).
Thought to myself, "Joe, those names are so cartoonish. They couldn't have been the named of the original characters."
They weren't.
Henry Winkler voices a character named Willard Deutschebog.
Says no, Prozac-ian, Clench, Douchebag, Miracle Grow. This all scares me some.
I know that everyone involved has a good reputation. I get that Josh Weinstein has worked on The Simpsons and Futurama and has Emmys blah blah blah ...
But he also worked on The Mullets. Yes, The Mullets.
And Mission Hill (though to be fair, most of that show worked for me, still does when Adult Swim runs the episodes that exist).
Mitch Hurwitz? Well, he did attract some top talent but they seem to be trading pretty heavy on the Arrested connection, like they don't have decent clips to show.
One more thing, what's up with the photographic backgrounds? They're lowering the bar so far now that I could be a cartoon artist. I have a camera. Can't draw a straight line but I have a camera and I could probably fashion a few unique looking character models out of my doodles.
So, note my fear. Still watch it, but keep me sitting there, maybe by your remote (the tiny version of me, that looks up every now and then and squeaks out, "You're watching this?")
It seems to me that shows that hit have a much more organic route to the schedule than smashing together the producer from The Simpsons with a not so successful foreign sitcom format and a few of the people from Arrested Development.
I so wanna be wrong about this. I so would love to see another great animated comedy on Fox.
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