After over a year following the anti-Enter bandwagon, seeing it crumble down to its core, that being that it's a hive of autism on a as big, if not grander scale than what they're against, I bit the bullet and decided to watch some of his reviews. Can't say he's worth a subscription, but he is much better now than he was back then.
Now you're probably thinking, am I bringing him up because of a certain review? Well, he actually did a review of Squirrel Boy a while back and given that I don't like the show I figured it'd be cool to see some coverage of it. Upon seeing it, I was a bit disappointed that it just amounted to covering an single episode and not going into the inner workings on why this show was garbage. I did talk about this show a while back, well before I adopted my go-into-detail style, so let's go into it and hope it doesn't turn out like my Shrek review.
Squirrel Boy was created by illustrator Everett Peck. Peck had had plenty of experience in the world of animation, primarily serving as a character designer on numerous Klasky-Csupo and Adelaide Productions shows, along with the occasional writing credit. That experience enabled him to branch out and produce his own content, of which came only two shows to his name.
The first was, obviously, Duckman, a much better series quite frankly. All else I could say about it was that the network choice still surprises me (it aired on USA Network, and the only time you saw cartoons on there were during the mornings and afternoon). That lasted until 1997, and until then Peck returned to his roots, at least, for then.
In 2006, Peck decided to give another go at creating something original. He had gone to Cartoon Network, who I guess at the time went for anything to fill airtime, made a pitch and soon after, we got Squirrel Boy.
The show lasted for about a year, with 26 episodes spanning two seasons. I'm beginning to notice a trend of shows with thirteen episode seasons, ending by the second. I guess it's down to contractual obligation or something. One thing I've noticed about this show is that it received assistance from some familiar names in animation. Raymie Muzquiz, who did work for shows like Hey Arnold! (directed The Jungle Movie), The Simpsons and more, Tuck Tucker (who I recognize from SpongeBob and Hey Arnold!) and Joe Purdy. What does this mean? Pssh, nothing. Needed to squeeze out as much trivia as possible I guess.
Only other thing I could say regarding background trivia is that this show had a pilot. No idea when it was made, but nobody's hurrying to find it.
If you could sum up a show within a sentence, you'd know for sure how little substance it has. The show centers on the misadventures of a boy and his pet talking squirrel as they venture through the contrived conflict of the day, and that's a prime downfall to this show. The episodes themselves are just the aforementioned plot, padded out with some obnoxious jokes to fill eleven minutes.
I was along for the long haul. I have seen a stark majority of the episodes, they have stuck in my mind for one reason or another. I could remember a majority of the jokes and I revisited most episodes for a refresher. Basically, it wasn't that significant to me (My Gym Partner's a Monkey was far more interesting and seemed to try harder than this show, and there was Camp Lazlo, though honestly I hate that show just a bit more.)
The humor in this show is its achilles heel, as mentioned before. It's kinda special when you think about it, while most shows rely heavily on gross-out humor to keep viewers attention or make up for a lack of a good joke, I'm seeing no effort here. It amounts to one character acting wacky and saying something that seems outrageous, but is just vanilla, and I mean that like that dried out vanilla frosting on a donut.
On the upside, the one who attempts to maintain some humor, attempting and failing but attempting nevertheless is Rodney, the Squirrel Boy of the title. In his efforts, he has dragged down the show heavily. Rodney has the most personality on the show, and said personality is the always classic obnoxious douche. Even the show knows he's the most interesting character, given that the intro is dedicated to spouting his name. I don't give a shit about the other characters, save for one other, because most either take a small part in the plot or only appear to move it along, albeit barely. For that one character, it's the dad character Bob Johnson (and yeah, their surname speaks numbers on how groundbreaking this show was). All you need to know is that he's that stuffy cynical guy, and in shows like these, he's Hitler and we should giggle with glee as he suffers (Camp Lazlo does this to a far worse extent.) To be fair though, Bob has actually come out on top plenty of times or has had a happier ending than Rodney.
The premises are no better. Some follow a basic moral or premise that wouldn't look out of place in something from the late 20th century. If you've seen an episode of a show with this kind of moral, you've essentially seen the Squirrel Boy episodes that show it as well, though they do whatever they could to make it original, as in throw in some comedic squirrel gold. Others are essentially the equivalent of making a house out of a hole in the ground. These amount to making an interesting premise out of going to a flea market (and the only interesting thing about that is the ever exciting hand washing scene) and focusing on curing an allergic reaction.
I can't say the writers are creatively bankrupt, given that a majority of them came from better shows, but I could say they're generally limited. Some of them came from SpongeBob, and it feels like they're trying to recapture the essence of that show. It's down to creative interference, where Cartoon Network wanted something that was both affable and could be completed within every week.
While Everett Peck had experience in both adult and kids animation, I think he was more in tune with the former, because lets face it, with adult-geared cartoons you didn't have to contend with any limits or network demands, that's what made Duckman the high point of his career.
Everett Peck has a specific art style, this is best shown in Duckman and the Jumanji TV series.
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| And yes that existed. |
Squirrel Boy kept that principle, to an overall mixed personal reception. It's certainly different in comparison to other Cartoon Network shows at the time, and I think that's why I remembered the show so vividly, but let's be real. It's essentially a series of deformed characters against some otherwise bland backgrounds.
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| Quite a shift. |
The opening sequence has a greater level of effort than the overall show, featuring a mix of 2D, 3D and stop motion animation. If the show utilized the methods they used in the intro, it'd essentially be a beautiful mess. But alas, Rodney's all you could think about, and as quickly want to get out of your head because his schtick is as annoying as it is repetitive.
To add to the show's overall bland atmosphere, we have our typical round of stock actors, but I do have plenty more to talk about. Rodney's voiced by Richard Horvitz. I have nothing against the guy, he has an enduring voice and he did super well in an against-type role in Static Shock (as a mentally unstable school shooter, I shit you not). But here, they give Rich nothing to work with, it's clear they just go by the script and nothing but when nothing is done with a bland scene. The other main pictured above is played by Pamela Aldon, Bobby Hill for those out of the loop (or Tabby from The Loud House, or Milo from The Oblongs). I'm happy it's not Tara Strong, but Pamela's performance is just straight-forward, nothing remarkable, like, at all.
They also got Nancy Sullivan (the mom from Drake and Josh) to voice the mom character, and there're two actors that I rarely hear from nowadays, Rick Gomez and Minica Lee Gradischek. The former also lent his voice to Windsor from My Gym Partner's a Monkey and the latter provided the voice for the title character from Prickles the Cactus (one of many unrealized Cartoon Network pilots, and I bring that up because that would've been a more deserving series than Squirrel Boy). But what I remember them the most from is the voices of Snuppa and Bianca from the Sniz and Fondue segments on Kablam!.
Only one on the main roster that surprises me is Kurtwood Smith, who voices the dad. I'm all for branching out from one medium, but Smith does little with this. It would've been interesting to see him incorporate some of the aspects of his more notable roles (it'd be cool if he brought in some of Red Foreman or Clarence Boddicker), but it's just a typical by the numbers portrayal.
This could be a case for any Cartoon Network show. If someone complains vehemently about one Cartoon Network show, remind them that it could be as bland and annoying as Squirrel Boy. Trust me, it sucks more to be painfully mediocre than it is to be straight up bad. You could find some enjoyment in how bad something is, but you can't find anything in a mediocre program. Squirrel Boy is nothing, but at least Peck has a better fallback than Jeff Muncy.
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