TBS at this time were all about sitcoms, which were somehow more grounded than what you'd find on the major networks. Did you know there was a TV show based on an Ice Cube movie from years ago starring Terry Crews? Are We There Yet? Because that happened. I remember it happening and for some reason I remember the conclusion of two episodes, one where the dad and his son got into a bet relating to sports and the other where he walks in on his kids using night-vision goggles. The fact that I only remember fragments of it should say numbers.
There was also The Bill Engvall Show, which gives me the idea that TBS were all about familycoms back then. Bill Engvall is one of those lighter-hearted country comedians, and that sentiment extended to his show. If that aired today it wouldn't make it past the pilot, then again Last Man Standing not only survived but thrived, and Roseanne only got knocked off because of someone's case of racial dysphoria.
Then Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry Tyler Perry... One wasn't enough, so we got two. House of Payne, which is ongoing, on BET. There's also Meet the Browns, which tied into the Madea films. I suddenly have the desire to see an episode of The Boondocks where Tyler Perry's shows are confronted directly, at least Thousand Dollar Bee was on an obscure network.
Aside from those shows, all else I had to look forward two were reruns of The Office and Family Guy.
And for those who're gonna inevitably (but unlikely since I typically only get feedback when I cover what people know) ask if I've seen TBS' latest, I'll just sum it up, because I don't have the interest. There's one show that, for the life of me, I can't remember the name of, but the trailer didn't wow me.
There's also Final Space, but if that's ongoing, it's best I get my philosophy on binge-watching out of the way. I don't do binging, I just can't make that kind of commitment. I hardly watch television anymore and I don't use Netflix (because there're no shows I want to watch on there.), plus if it's continuity based, that means I have a whole arc to get through just to know what happens and if I just go by one episode, I'm bound to piss people off.
And there's the big one, for those who know how much of a coronary the creator and his other work gives me. Close Enough. Now let me ask, does anyone even know that show exists? I've only seen one video in my recommendations so far of a single trailer. I'm no fan of J.G. Quintel's style, so I'm just gonna skip it. Hey, would you rather I do everything in my power to trash it, or do you want me to just say I'm not interested?
Now, there was one other show I watched the hell out of back when it was new, and that's what I'm gonna be covering.
Neighbors from Hell
On the air, I had seen all but the first episode, I think I was busy the day the show debuted, but yeah, I was around for plenty. I actually did catch the first episode later on down the line, and, not ashamed to admit, I've recently caught a few select episodes online for one straight constant viewing. I don't know if it was because of nostalgia, but the fact that I never ducked out at any point means the show had something special, but I can't tell what it was.
The show was spearheaded by Pam Brady, a producer who got her start (well, start after a stint on The John Larroquette Show) working with Trey Parker and Matt Stone. She worked as a writer on South Park for its first two years and helped write South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Amy Winfrey, the creator of Making Fiends, also worked on the film as an animator, interesting piece of trivia) and Team America: World Police. Her latest work after this was Lady Dynamite, who she created alongside Mitchell Hurwitz of Arrested Development fame and Sit Down, Shut Up infamy.
Brady created and produced this show, accounting for her Wounded Poodle vanity card, which she also used for The Loop, another notable on her part. The show was also worked on by DreamWorks of all companies, but under a pseudonym, MoonBoy Animation. For those of you who watched this show to the end when it first aired, if you caught this logo, the first thing that may pop into your head is "Is that a DreamWorks reference?"
Apparently the story behind this is that as DreamWorks was better known for producing animation for younger audiences, they needed to keep their name separate from something dedicated more to adults, hence why this is the only time we see that logo. But I'd like to remind you, DreamWorks also produced Father of the Pride, and had their logo unobscured. Maybe it's because both shows had different styles or because DreamWorks was so hurt by Father of the Pride's suckage that they felt their name would be a big jinx? Or maybe it's because both shows used radically different animation.
Father of the Pride was done in CGI, and this was done in flash, and not by them directly. They outsourced the animation to Bento Box Entertainment, of the first season of Bob's Burgers fame and all else infamy. The show lasted for a single season of ten episodes, and for those who see red flags, the amount of episodes in the first season depend solely on network orders. Sometimes they order as little as six episodes, sometimes they order as much as twenty two.
Every episode aired on TBS at least once. I don't know if the ratings were good enough to warrant a full airing of the season, or maybe TBS was the kind of network that would follow through on their promise to air a show in its entirety, or perhaps people were looking forward to seeing something that didn't have Tyler Perry's name.
Premise
I'm not going to focus too much on the characters, aside from some for the sake of context. I'm just gonna go over how they handle the sitcom schtick with its characterizations. In this, they go for a half and half approach, half of the characters are swapped by character types, others are played straight. The former half has the husband being the more levelheaded one, Balthazar and the wife is the one who causes trouble due to her own selfishness and borderline naive behavior, Tina withstanding. In the latter half, we have self-absorbed teen daughter Mandy and the fat idiot savant Josh. Perhaps to bring it full circle, we even have a talking dog who's voiced by Patton Oswalt. Kurtwood Smith is also in this as Balthazar's sadistic boss, and you know what? I'm okay with that. It's a step-up from Squirrel Boy, and Smith is in his element here.
This show is essentially 75% raunch and edge, with the remainder being a semblance of coherency. The main characters are demons from hell sent to Houston, Texas to destroy a drill that'd go down into hell and destroy it. I'll give it this, with a premise like this I can't say I saw something like this before, and for the record, Hell in this show is portrayed as being in the center of the Earth. And the only reason they're sent to Earth is because Balthazar technically has more knowledge of the human race than other demons due to watching television.
Right off the bat, I think my least favorite aspect about this show is its raunch and edginess, well in most areas. At worst, Tina and Balthazar make out at random and we get a lot of testicular jokes, and I mean A LOT, but at best, they're negligible. I mean, the show itself isn't necessarily... racist? And it's not, some people of ethnicity get hurt, but I imagine it would've happened to anybody in the show. I think the show is after a much grander prize, the entirety of humanity.
Almost every human in this show is portrayed as uncaring, often sociopathic and batshit insane. Think of the show as a mix between The Oblongs and God, The Devil and Bob, the latter having a personification for a deity from either heaven and hell, and the former representing the upper class exhibiting mass apathy for the lower class and the world.
This show is a misanthropic wet dream for those who hate the human race, they're portrayed as animal killers who give no shits about anything unless it'd further them in the fiscal food chain. Be prepared to see a lot of dead animals and animal abuse. I would say PeTA got this cancelled, but if they were involved, the show would've been taken off sooner.
On the surface, this just seems like a "mean spirited" show, but I'm detecting some subtext. In a way, this seems like the perfect pro-environmental show. Just hear me out. Rather than punishing humans for how they treat the environment, we see first hand what would happen if massive environmental mistreatment goes unchecked. Do you want to witness such carnage in the real world? Another big hint for this... why are the demons green? Green is like, environmental. So while the chaos is featured predominately, it's not necessarily encouraged. It's like an over-the-top PSA done right.
Although I imagine this would be muddled with the inclusion of one certain character. Marjoe. To sum up, she has a dog that wants to kill himself over how she treats him, and you guys obsessed over how Ren treated bugs and a frog, at least there we get that he was a sociopath. Then again, Marjoe might just be incredibly airheaded, and, blasphemous for me to say, actually kinda likable. She's annoying, but maybe she's used for a point. All I know is that while some people may single her out, I didn't find her to be that unbearable. Then again, I don't react to Adult Party Cartoon the way other people do.
Then there's the matter of how offensive it is on a religious scale. Based on the episodes I've seen, I didn't catch any knocks at Christianity, Satan is portrayed as threatening (though borrows a bit from Alan Cumming's version from God, The Devil and Bob)... I can't say it's any more offensive than Mr. Pickles, and if you think that's a knock on the quality, that show's meant to be offensive, it just comes off as repetitive on an impression basis.
They might've been going for something here, but on the off chance you can't see it, it's incredibly edgy, but it's not even the worst show to feature hell-vibes.
But wait, I almost forgot, pop culture jokes. These come in the form of then relevant musicians and movies. We got references to the Twilight films, Coldplay, Dane Cook, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears. These would date the show but... it didn't necessarily happen yet. Coldplay's still playing and I'm sure Lady Gaga is, Britney Spears may return, Dane Cook is still performing, and Twilight may still get covered in retrospective reviews.
Okay, now I'm reaching. This is a universal sin, if you include pop culture references in anything, it'd date your show. How does this show carry these out, it's like "oh this is bad, he likes this, what a douche." Admittedly, I didn't take offense to them smearing musical taste, I mean, I only like one Coldplay song, and I'm sure they were going after their post A Rush of Blood to the Head releases. Also Guitar Hero and text messaging. We all still use our phones nowadays, and I think people are dodging Guitar Hero because... Activision.
Right off the bat, I think my least favorite aspect about this show is its raunch and edginess, well in most areas. At worst, Tina and Balthazar make out at random and we get a lot of testicular jokes, and I mean A LOT, but at best, they're negligible. I mean, the show itself isn't necessarily... racist? And it's not, some people of ethnicity get hurt, but I imagine it would've happened to anybody in the show. I think the show is after a much grander prize, the entirety of humanity.
Almost every human in this show is portrayed as uncaring, often sociopathic and batshit insane. Think of the show as a mix between The Oblongs and God, The Devil and Bob, the latter having a personification for a deity from either heaven and hell, and the former representing the upper class exhibiting mass apathy for the lower class and the world.
This show is a misanthropic wet dream for those who hate the human race, they're portrayed as animal killers who give no shits about anything unless it'd further them in the fiscal food chain. Be prepared to see a lot of dead animals and animal abuse. I would say PeTA got this cancelled, but if they were involved, the show would've been taken off sooner.
On the surface, this just seems like a "mean spirited" show, but I'm detecting some subtext. In a way, this seems like the perfect pro-environmental show. Just hear me out. Rather than punishing humans for how they treat the environment, we see first hand what would happen if massive environmental mistreatment goes unchecked. Do you want to witness such carnage in the real world? Another big hint for this... why are the demons green? Green is like, environmental. So while the chaos is featured predominately, it's not necessarily encouraged. It's like an over-the-top PSA done right.
Although I imagine this would be muddled with the inclusion of one certain character. Marjoe. To sum up, she has a dog that wants to kill himself over how she treats him, and you guys obsessed over how Ren treated bugs and a frog, at least there we get that he was a sociopath. Then again, Marjoe might just be incredibly airheaded, and, blasphemous for me to say, actually kinda likable. She's annoying, but maybe she's used for a point. All I know is that while some people may single her out, I didn't find her to be that unbearable. Then again, I don't react to Adult Party Cartoon the way other people do.
Then there's the matter of how offensive it is on a religious scale. Based on the episodes I've seen, I didn't catch any knocks at Christianity, Satan is portrayed as threatening (though borrows a bit from Alan Cumming's version from God, The Devil and Bob)... I can't say it's any more offensive than Mr. Pickles, and if you think that's a knock on the quality, that show's meant to be offensive, it just comes off as repetitive on an impression basis.
They might've been going for something here, but on the off chance you can't see it, it's incredibly edgy, but it's not even the worst show to feature hell-vibes.
But wait, I almost forgot, pop culture jokes. These come in the form of then relevant musicians and movies. We got references to the Twilight films, Coldplay, Dane Cook, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears. These would date the show but... it didn't necessarily happen yet. Coldplay's still playing and I'm sure Lady Gaga is, Britney Spears may return, Dane Cook is still performing, and Twilight may still get covered in retrospective reviews.
Okay, now I'm reaching. This is a universal sin, if you include pop culture references in anything, it'd date your show. How does this show carry these out, it's like "oh this is bad, he likes this, what a douche." Admittedly, I didn't take offense to them smearing musical taste, I mean, I only like one Coldplay song, and I'm sure they were going after their post A Rush of Blood to the Head releases. Also Guitar Hero and text messaging. We all still use our phones nowadays, and I think people are dodging Guitar Hero because... Activision.
Animation
 |
| Not bad |
As mentioned before, this was done in flash, so I can't really hold this to that high of a standard, and it doesn't matter as long as it looks good. Allow me to pick one of my favorite buzzwords that isn't nuance, interesting. It doesn't look horrible by any means. When it comes to gratuity, there should be some focus toward the other extreme. It's a look at the worst of humanity with a visual style that's easy on the eyes.
Look at Legend of Chamberlain Heights and then complain to me about how bad this show supposedly looks.
Overall
I think there's more to this show than it being a raunchy feast for the eyes. One reason I'm not as hard on comedy is that at times, they can give you a lot more to think about. But if you're still not convinced, it's not as cheap as Legend of Chamberlain Heights, it's somehow less raunchy than Brickleberry, and somehow, I'm willing to sit through any of its episodes.
Am I insane? Or is there something special about this?
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