Before I begin, I'd just like to stress this point. I'd hate this show no matter my political standing. A shit show is a shit show, no matter anyone's political standings.
It seems that no matter what Trump does, there'll be a very vocal majority who'll try to make it look like a bad thing. If the guy manages to end gun violence, they'll talk shit about him. As long as he's in office, this shit will always happen, which is why I'm talking about today's show (and the fact that it hasn't been cancelled outright yet keeps it relevant) I just want to get this out of my system because this show is so trash, it's a case for other punching bags you hear NEETS drone about on a daily basis.
Plot
Our Cartoon President is so bad, you don't even have to watch it to get the idea. Just go into it knowing that it details the fictional life of Donald Trump as told by people on the far left. Hilarity ensues. The series focuses on topical issues relevant to key events that occur where Trump is involved. That's pretty much it.
The plot hardly stands out, not worth pulling the extra effort to go into great detail (which makes sense since this show is a parody of a real life figure according to, again, people on the far left political spectrum.) Now, political satire, even directed toward conservative figures could be done right, and this was done better during the Bush administration. Lil' Bush, regardless of what you may think of it, actually had an air of originality to it. That's My Bush, while a bit more venomous, at least treated Bush like a human being, moreso than these shills would ever do with Trump.
Now let's get into the more interesting bits.
Production
The series was the brainchild of Stephen Colbert, a name a grand majority of you should recognize. He's what I'd like to call a gender bent Rosie O'Donnell who's in good shape. It's no secret that these current talk show hosts are some of Trump's biggest haters. They stand out more because they bring him up constantly on air, whereas everyone else would do it via Twitter. It's so insufferable that CNN tunes into all of them when they have the time. Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are some of the more notable examples. Kimmel practically nerfed the viewership of the latest Oscars by hammering in loose-fitting Trump jokes during his introduction speech, and Colbert seems to hold a stronger contempt toward Trump.
The seeds for the show began with a segment Colbert made featuring an animated version of Donald Trump. Imagine a man who hates another so much that he resorts to puppetry to assert dominance he never has. In his own words "This series needed to happen." This idea was so brilliant that it warranted a TV series. A TV series. Not an in-show cartoon. Not a web series. A half-hour TV series on a premium TV network. People are so hateful toward Trump that shit like this is actually possible.
The network unfortunate enough to pick this show up is Showtime. Now, you might be thinking "Wow, Showtime greenlit a cartoon series?", yes, and no. This isn't the first cartoon series they've shown or backed. This is one of three. The earliest known cartoon on Showtime was Queer Duck, which turned up on their website.
And here it is.
Now you may be thinking "Well, that was just for their website, Our Cartoon President is the first legitimate cartoon series to be picked up by the network." Wrong again. Down below is the first actual Showtime cartoon series.
Free For All beat Our Cartoon President by fifteen years (and the show itself is so much better (even by the animation). Only reason people didn't bring this up was because the series is fairly elusive. The episodes are available online, but the fact that the show was only available on a premium network (which you had to pay for) ensured people that it would never be seen much. An undeserved fate that plagued Arli$$ (HBO's answer for a premium only series.
Back to the cartoon that should've been a Newgrounds post, as mentioned before, Colbert has the most involvement in the show, being one of five creators (seriously, FIVE people came up with a series that could be made up by some bored kid on the bus who wants to resort to mocking the president just to gain social points) and is a producer as well, his production company, Spartina Productions, receiving a credit. The only other company involved is Licht Media Solutions, formed by another of the FIVE creators Chris Licht. What has he done? He's a newsman who executive produces Colbert's latest talk show. That sadly makes the most sense when summing up the behind the scenes details.
Animation
When looking up the show, I noticed something. Very few of them, if at all, have any experience in the creation of animated shows. I'm not fucking kidding, and the evidence is in the show's animation. In this day and age, shows are created using Flash or Toon Boom Harmony. But, Colbert being the cutting-edge creator he is decided to not use either, not even traditional animation or... whatever the fuck The Adventures of Kid Danger uses.
Enter Adobe Character Animator. In a nutshell, it's a savvier version of GoAnimate. People would use this to get content out much quicker than usual. These people are so desperate to see their Trump-hatred broadcast live that they have to resort to shit like this. It's so bad that the Spartina Productions logo at the end of every episode has the best animation (the rest if you're curious just look like Adobe Premiere projects.)
The only positive thing I could say about the animation is that it's a case for defending other shows accused of being lazy. Allow me to spotlight the lazy punching bags of yesteryear to stress my point.
12 Oz. Mouse: Everyone's favorite punching bag for "lazy animation". Sure, it looks lazy, but when you look closer, you could tell that the creator tried his hardest to make it look lazy. It's more of an art statement than being lazy. Note the clean movements of the characters.
Biatches: Currently sits as one of the lowest rated shows on IMDb. Here, the animation is rather choppy and lazy, but it has some kind of appeal to it. It's like those doodles you draw in your notebook when you're feeling lazy in class. It harkens back to the days where you aspire to escape from the banality of school, while taking you back to your wild high school years. Plus, in the age of rampant feminism and lesbian worship, it's refreshing to see a girl-centered show based on girls who want to do it with dudes. Not to mention, unlike Our Cartoon President, this is only available online, along with the fact that few people even know about the show helps make this look better by comparison.
I'm literally the only one who actually likes this show. What's wrong with me?
Lastly, let's refer back to a show I referenced early on in this review. The Adventures of Kid Danger. This show set the bar for lazy animation, and was even compared to GoAnimate. What's my rebuttal to that? Well, the studio behind it is capable of producing good animation, having been behind that Castlevania series on Netflix, at least one OK KO short and a series of motion comics based on the first series mentioned. Call this cheap, but the one thing Kid Danger has over Our Cartoon President is that it's a lot easier on the eyes.
I do have more examples, but they don't get any hate enough to warrant me bringing them up. I will say that a show's animation could be forgiven if the story shines through. For the non-mentioned examples, they do. For the others... yeah I needed justifications on those.
Now, take a good look at Our Cartoon President's award-winning animation.
Ugly, lazy, you could feel the contempt oozing out of it, "I don't know shit about working on cartoon shows, but I REALLY wanted to make this show about Trump because it's such a cutting edge idea."
Overall
When you take into account the man behind this as well as the lazy nature of the show, you could see why I hold it in such a low regard. While shows aimed at George Bush at least had some level of fun to them, Our Cartoon President feels spiteful and really goes to show how sore the asses of the far left truly are. You could only go so long hearing the same jokes about Trump's skin, how he's apparently a racist on par with Malcolm X and how he hurt the feelings of whiny over-privelaged progressives from California, and New York, and Oregon probably, and that's what this show is. No matter the jokes, it all boils down to "Trump stinks, we rule, thanks for the views, now fuck off."
The only positive aspect I could think of for this series is that they got an okay Trump impersonator to do the voice of the walking cheeto, Jeff Bergman, who does the voices of numerous Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera characters in legacy films/shows. Bergman has more experience in animation than any of these asses who open up Adobe, drag some things along, record the lines then release it onto Showtime before logging onto Twitter to scream at anyone who has the name Trump in their handle.
I don't recommend this show to anyone, not even people who hate Trump to the extent that they'd take what's said on CNN at face value. Let it serve as a case-study for how low people could sink when it comes to making a show.
Grade: F
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