I may be down, but I'm not out. Given my bizarre fixation on obscure stuff, I felt it'd be interesting to talk about a Bill Cosby show that has fallen under the cracks. Imagine if The Cosby Show and My Wife and Kids banged, or in Cosby's case, drugged the latter, got them pregnant and okay you get the picture.
History
Fatherhood came almost as quickly as it went, let's put it like that. The series lasted from 2004 up until 2005 on Nick at Nite. While we're on the subject, this was actually Nick at Nite's first original animated series, who knew? The series was created by Bill Cosby and Charles Kipps, a frequent collaborator with the former who also had some writing credits on Cosby's previous series Little Bill. It's ironic that Cosby was involved with Nickelodeon twice, the same network that housed Dan Schneider. Nickelodeon, the place for sexual assault affiliations. Also Mo Willems and Paul Tibbitt served as producers apparently.
The first season was released on DVD, but at some point every episode was put up on iTunes. Surprised it's still available there in spite of the Cosby allegations. I watched Nick at Nite around this time, so I was actually able to catch this show. Of that, only one episode stuck in my mind, and given my penchant for embellishing details in my mind, it turned out differently than I remembered.
The series currently sits at a flat 5.0 on IMDb. Interestingly, the few reviews for the series were published the year this series came out. At best, it works well with what it has, at worst, it has ugly animation apparently.
Premise
The series centers on the Bindlebeeps. Really? Bindlebeeps? You could've called him the Zibzobzoobidybops or- you know what? Fuck the Cosby jokes.
Anyway, the Bindlebeeps feature Arthur, who's a scientist apparently. What that amounts to in the series so far is that he's super smart. You could've made him a doctor, but then again it'd just be a Cosby Show rehash if it went down like that, but wait, he's also a teacher. What next? Does he have x-ray vision or invisibility? That seemed to have helped him in his prime.
Aiding him is his wife, who just gives comments basically. Then there're his children who're so bland that they don't even deserve to be mentioned by name, but rather the archetypes they represent. We have the socialiteish eldest daughter, the bratty middle child boy, and the sickly sweet youngest daughter.
Onto the framework. Basically, it's your average Cosby sitcom. Cosby was the Nickelback of the black-com scene. Once you find the parallel within every Cosby sitcom, you'd have no reason to continue. Something happens, a lesson is learned, some comedy is peppered in to make the show seem like it's more promising than it actually is, you question Nick at Nite's quality assurance, rinse and repeat.
The short summary given to the series on Wikipedia is actually more interesting than the show itself. I get the idea that the parents would be lectured by their kids on what would be best given the situation, where we could get a whole new perspective from the eyes of people who're taught the most often. That sounds fairly original, and I'd gladly something watch that over this.
If you go with the same structure for every episode, every show, you won't even have the satisfaction of people returning to mock you. Little Bill at least had the concept of life being viewed from a child (along with more stylish animation), even Romeo! had more interesting characters and a low quality charm that made it its own. Plus the summary tidbit sounds like a much better series... Growing Around? As for the My Wife and Kids comparison, it kinda makes sense. The family structure is the same, the wife looks like Janet, the behavior is similar, but Arthur Bindlebeep is no Damon Wayans.
Allow me to sum up by discussing the tidbits of the one episode I remember seeing. The episode starts with a basic moral, early bird catches the worm. Pssh, more like the early bird develops a psychological complex and finds itself going to bed at around the same time. They visit their parents, the grandfather is a fitness nut.
In an interesting twist, after Arthur feels like he's still getting babied by his parents, his father gets injured and Arthur begins to feel like he's in charge of him. This would've been an interesting premise... had it not been for the fact that this occurs late into the episode, and it just amounts to Arthur making his father take medication.
This was the first episode. If your impressions are poor here, you won't have the initiative to continue. I believe I saw more of this show when I was young, but the episodes have slipped my mind. Maybe that's for the best.
Animation
Some say the animation is ugly...
 |
| They're onto something |
I'm not one to nitpick, but I feel tempted to break that principle. Always looking to try something new. First up, this looks weird as hell. I've seen worse, but this is fairly beyond smell range. I'm honestly more peeved at the quality of this promotional image. The wife looks like she was tacked on at the last minute. Overall, I guess they wanted to go with a weird style because even they knew they couldn't hide the bland nature of the series.
And no, I haven't forgotten the dog in the middle. It looks as it it was drawn on the concept art after it was completed. Like hey, we need a dog to bring our generic series full circle. Admittedly, the dog looks a bit better in the actual series, but concept art exists to sell you on a series. Would you back this if this was your only window into the series? I love cutesy archetype's smug look and gestures, as if she's saying "Yeah that's my dog, you think it looks better than your hoe of a wife?"
The series' animation is basic. It has some nice backgrounds and I guess the animation complements it. According to an IMDb review, this series uses CGI, but it seems to only apply to the intro.
Overall
I take it Hannibal Buress caught on to the repetitive nature of Bill Cosby and tried to get the ball rolling again on the sexual assault allegations so he wouldn't have to put up with it anymore. It's obvious nobody cared about this series. Not enough to be mocked in later years, not even ringing bells with Cosby followers. If you're the kind of person who wants painfully harmless content, you might get a kick out of this series.
I'm probably going to get hate less for the shit Cosby jokes, and more for the fact that I spoke positively about Growing Around... plot thickens.
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