Day Two Hundred and Thirty-three - Robot Chicken: Season 1, Episode 4, "A Behind the Music sketch with The Muppets? Sign me up! Again!"

Alright, I consider doing an episode of Robot Chicken for Couchbound to be almost as close to cheating as Pucca was, due to both of them having really short episodes, but at least Robot Chicken has actual content!

Produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich and featuring Emmy-winning stop-motion animation using, I kid you not, old action figures and toys, Robot Chicken is about as close to frat humor that geek society can get as a subculture.

Featuring quick cut, ADHD jokes that last as long as it takes to "change the channel" on the show, this particular episode features several bits with Ryan Seacrest (of American Idol fame) throwing out his trademark outro in several different contexts (my favorite being his revealing dress fetish), as well as a feature on the fall of Muppets house band The Electric Mayhem, an Armageddon parody featuring Harrison Ford (who is impersonated), and an improbable extreme pet sport.

On the whole, Robot Chicken is more crude than insightful, but manages to present lowbrow humor with enough geeky references and celebrity guest stars (not to mention impersonators) to keep things fresh and relatively funny. While it's sometimes a bit too obvious and on the nose, the writing waffling between puerile and clever, even the fart jokes manage to bring at least a smile.

While each episode is an exercise in hit or miss skits, it's hard not to find genius in this particular episode's Muppet sketch. Seeing Doctor Teeth, Floyd, Animal, and Janice (Zoot isn't really featured save as an aside about getting arrested) fall from grace is nothing short of brilliant... especially when Janice talks about getting Hep C from Tommy Lee with Howard Stern. That harsh, "F#$% you, Howard, I'm dah-ying!" is bloody hilarious!

Sure, the animal ski slalom is meh and the Armageddon sketch is more than a tad predictable, most everything else in the episode makes up for it and really evens out the show's rough spots.

I think that I only have two complaints, really.

First, the show is only ten minutes long... not that it would be much of a problem, as it's best in short spurts anyway, it's just that Netflix has that annoying "Are you still watching?" popup that triggers every two episodes. It gets to be a hassle, seeing that thing after only twenty minutes.

Second, like the rest of the Cartoon Network/Adult Swim shows currently running on the Stream, it only has the first season. I mean, really? These shows have been on for years, even well over a decade for some (like Dexter's Lab and Samurai Jack)... and have long since completed their runs for the most part (Robot Chicken is still slowly plugging away, last time I checked). Would it kill Williams Street, et al., to let all the seasons onto the Stream?

Overall, I don't think that Robot Chicken is for everyone. It's geeky, juvenile humor that probably only hits with the Gen Xers and Millennial set. That said, it's a fun ride full of dark humor.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Two Hundred and Two - The Venture Bros.: Season 1, Pilot, "See, this is what happens..."

...when you watch a crap ton of Jonny Quest and smoke a lot of weed.

But, really, that's a good thing.

Done in the style of the old Hanna-Barbera adventure cartoons from the 60's and 70's, Venture Bros. definitely emulates those awkward, super-science boys shows in all the right ways while lampooning their faults with obvious plays, puns, and reversals.

Focusing on the Venture family, where Dr.Venture is an obvious analog to Dr.Benton Quest and the boys are a cross between the eponymous Jonny and Frank and Joe Hardy from, you guessed it, The Hardy Boys mystery novels. Race Bannon is replaced by the rage-prone Brock Sampson (voiced by Patrick Warburton) who only seems to get amped about sex and violence.

While the series as a whole draws inspiration from just about all things geeky and counter-culture from the past fifty years, from David Bowie to Marvel Comics, the pilot itself only carries a few such references (like the obvious Reed Richards/Mr.Fantastic clone).

There are also a few key design and character issues that never made the transition to the series proper, the most noticeable being the latent sexuality that Dr.Venture subtly exhibits towards an uncaring Brock.

While the regular series definitely paints Dr.Venture as a failure at life and love, there's never any sexual tension between he and Brock save for this one episode... though they are the effective parents of the boys in the form of hetero life-mates.

I don't know if the network wanted to tone down the idea of Doc Venture lusting after Brock, even though the show was firmly rooted in their racier Adult Swim block, but the idea was transferred, instead, to VB's actual Jonny Quest analogs, Action Johnny and Race Bannon who are implied to have had some sort of loving relationship. But that is a conversation for another day when talking about the rest of the series, not the pilot.

The pilot itself is fun, even if some of the jokes run a little too long or have uneven payoffs, like the "we don't have a mom" silence or the ninja's paraphilia. It's easy to see why the series was picked up and it does improve over time. Let's just say that, despite its flaws, there was lots of potential in this pilot.

Also, Hookers, Supervillains, and Violence.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~