Adventure Time is a goddamn phenomenon. It’s on Hot Topic T-Shirts and has several video games to it’s name. It has fans of all ages. Not having regular access to cable for the the last decade or so I never really got around to watching it on cartoon network, but as it’s recently been available on Netflix I decided to finally give it a try.

Adventure Time tells the tale of Finn, a young heroic adventurer and his best friend Finn, a talking dog with the ability to stretch and change his size at will (because why not) as they have various adventures through the magical land of Ooo.

And I’m really struggling as to why this is so popular amongst different age groups. I can see the kid appeal. It’s colorful, admittedly has unique designs and is full of the completely wacky random humor that kids usually love. But it doesn’t go beyond that. The humor isn’t clever, it’s just completely random for the sake of being random the same way Family Guy is and usually gets heavily criticized for. Hell it seems a more grown up Teletubbies, where there is little range or depth to the characters and little in the way of actual plot, just a bunch of random nonsense. I can appreciate random humor and weird characters, but they alone cannot carry a show and at least need to actually be a joke. I think the only time I even smiled in the 6 episodes I watched was at the end of an episode where they guide a frail old little elephant through a dangerous forest to a crystal fruit she’s wanted to try and after eating a bite she explodes and that’s the end of the episode. Random on its own is not funny, and random is this show’s whole theme. Maybe this is just a type of humor that’s not for me. Possibly because I’m not eight or stoned. Hell I love Spongebob Squarepants, which is a bunch of randomness but wrapped in some consistency and well-defined characters that Adventure Time is sorely lacking. To say I hated it is far too strong but I sure as hell didn’t get and do not understand the wide crossover appeal it has.

Final Rating: 2/5 exploding little elephants

The post Animation Quick Look: Adventure Time appeared first on screensnark..

While just because of the breadth of content this column will mostly feature Japanese anime. I will definitely be reviewing stuff from other countries if possible, even surprisingly stuff from Northern America. Of course Western animation much like Western video games has a very different approach. Stories are often told in quick 22 minute bites with a very easy premise rather than a bunch of mini-arcs over the course of a season. This of course not bad, just different. I enjoy most of the well known US animation giants like Simpsons, South Park and Archer. But beyond that, there’s probably not a ton of Northern American animation that people are really aware of, so hopefully this column will bring a spotlight to something beyond the really big names.

Fugget About It is on Hulu as an “original exclusive” but like many of their exclusives that just means they bought the rights to something from Canada and claimed it as their own. Anyway, the setup of Fugget About It is something you can probably guess from from the title and picture alone. Stereotypical Italian hitman goes into witness protection with his family. The twist? They have been moved to Canada! Let the wacky hijinks ensue!

Fugget About It is essentially a very low rent version of the Seth Macfarlane comedies. I mean seriously, all they are missing is a smart alec pet. I’m not a huge fan of Macfarlane and his comedy style of throw everything at a wall until something sticks with random references with no jokes and this is a much lower quality version of that. The main character constantly mispronunces Regina. the name of the town they live in, as “Vagina”. This is not one throwaway joke, I watched 4 episodes and it’s a constant thing like it’s a fresh idea every episode. Or the writers are mentally twelve and think being able to say “Vagina” on TV repeatedly is the funniest goddamn thing ever. The characters not only don’t evolve, the aren’t even consistent. One character has a very bad gambilng addiction. They spend an entire episode dealing with it. In a later episode (and mind you, I only sat through 4) he claims he never gambles. Not that he doesn’t gamble anymore, that would should consistency and growth, God forbid. That he never gambles. And that is just one of many examples of characters constantly changing with no rhyme or reason. That might be forgivable if the jokes were evenly mildly decent, but I think I snickered once (in an episode where Canadian Icon Alan Thicke guest starred as a billionaire genius) in the roughly two hours worth of episodes I sat through. Mostly I just didn’t even react or occasionally felt embarrassed for even watching. The animation is lazy as hell too, one of the characters has the exact same drink in his hands at all time no matter where he is or what he is doing. It might’ve actually been a decent running joke if they did anything with that “trait” but it’s just there.

And finally, I think the writers know exactly the kind of brain dead lobotomized idiots who would watch this tripe and enjoy it, you can just tell by the opening. Because not only do they explain the premise TWICE IN A FUCKING ROW AT THE START OF EVERY FUCKING EPISODE (there’s the opening teaser that explains the basic plot and the title theme which spells it out yet again just in song), but they also cram in an extremely forced reference to the show title because clearly they believe somebody who would willingly watch this doesn’t even have the attention span of a squirrel and obviously they will forget what the hell they are watching less than a minute in. This is pretty much the worst animated show I’ve seen in a long time, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it, and I hate Canada a little more for having made it.

Rating: 0/5 Towns mispronounced “Vagina”.

The post Animation Quick Look: Fugget About it appeared first on screensnark..