Category: TV

“Fans of Whose Line Is It Anyway? will love Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show!”

Isn’t that a great opening line for a review? I wish I could use it.

The idea behind the show is that the cast performs improvisational comedy a la Whose Line on a stage completely covered by that ugly green color you’ve seen in so many special effect behind-the-scenes featurettes. The show is then sent off and animation is added depending on the performaces of the actors.

Sadly, it’s the animation that gets in the way here. I think part of the charm and power of improvisational comedy is that the audience participates not only by yelling out topics, titles and the like, but by filling in the mimed actions for themselves. Watching someone bow their legs and hop up and down on stage holding pretend reins is much funnier than seeing someone doing the same thing on a cartoon horse added later.

The animation is certainly servicable. I kind of enjoyed the jerky Flash style added to the one syllable boot camp game. And when a scene called for a wild west saloon, the animation was cute and well conceived, but I couldn’t get past the “See? Isn’t this funny? I mean look at this funny cartoon hat I’m wearing!” feel of it all.

I had high hopes for Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show, but I’m afraid I’ll be looking to catch reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway? instead.

“I am the wild blue yonder. The front line in a never-ending battle between good… and not-so good. Together, with my stalwart sidekick Arthur, and the magnanimous help of some other folks I know, we form the yin to villainy’s malevolent yang. Destiny has chosen us. Wicked men! You face… The Tick!”

I’ve been looking forward to seeing The Tick for some time. I unfortunately never got around to seeing it when it originally aired in 2001/02, but thankfully it’s now available on DVD.

I almost bought it quite a few times at Best Buy. Indeed I made a few trips out to my local store in hopes of purchasing it only to find their website’s in-store availability accuracy sorely lacking. Now that I’ve seen it though, I think I owe the site’s glitch a thank you.

Not that The Tick isn’t a lot of fun, it certainly has its share of very funny moments. But in the end something is missing. The problem is I can’t tell you what exactly it is.

Seinfeld’s “Puddy”, Patrick Warburton, pulls off a nicely thick Tick (and the costume is actually quite good), but he can’t seem to find the right balance between the boxer-who’s-been-hit-in-the-head-too-much mentality and his Shatner-tinged superhero speak.

The supporting cast is better with David Burke as a pitch perfect Arthur, Nestor Carbonell as the swarthy Batmanuel, and the absolutely lovely Liz Vassey as Captain Liberty. All put in better than supporting role performances with Vassey’s Liberty being my favorite (although that may be due to her Statue of Liberty inspired costume’s flaunting her huddled masses).

My favorite episode is probably “The Funeral” in which Captain Liberty accidentally kills legendary superhero The Immortal during a tryst. There’s some good slapstick as they try to place the body back in his hotel room to make it look like an accident, and some great eulogizing by the Tick. (The best line of the episode is a military general remarking of the Tick’s tribute “I like the cut of this man’s gibberish.”)

I couldn’t help wanting The Tick to have a stereo’s equivalent of an equalizer. With a little tweaking of the right comedy frequencies the show might have been something extraordinary. Instead it’s just a fairly funny record that skips occasionally.

Although The Tick is definitely worth a rental, save your hard earned cash in case they ever release the animated version I loved in college.

Aaron McGruder’s “Boondocks” will soon be appearing in Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim line-up of animation.

OK, sometimes McGruder’s strip is a little angry, but it’s one of a select few that I read with any sort of regularity. The art is good, although I’d like to see him stretch the comic strip form a bit, and the writing is exceptional. I’m very curious to see how the strip will translate over to animation.

Click here to read more…

I’ll be watching it for the articles.

Hugh Hefner and Stan Lee are joining forces with MTV to create a new animated series entitles “Hef’s Superbunnies” in which Hef and a group of specially trained Playboy bunnies fight crime.

Despite Hefner’s claims that the show is “going to be very satirical with a lot of cutting-edge aspects to it,” I’m not holding out a lot of hope. Call me pessimistic, but honestly, how good could this be?!

I’m predicting it dies a quiet death after the first year. You can read more about it here.

I’m a huge fan of “The Simpsons”. Although I’m not watching it three times a day like in my college heyday, I’m picking up all of the DVDs and still catch most new episodes (although last season was largely a stinker).

Here’s a wonderful Simpsons site that has the kinds of information true Simpsons fans memorize like our fathers used to know baseball stats.

Want to know which saxophone solo Lisa plays in the opening sequence of a particular episode? Got it. Need to know the exact RGB color of the Simpsons’ skin? Got it. Curious about the layout of Sir Putt-A-Lot’s Merrie Olde Fun Center? Although I’m not sure you need it… Got it!

Check it out before I release the hounds.