The Jackie Bison Show revie

 If a pilot never makes it to series, is that a blessing or a curse? I don't know, butt at the very least for every sin the big three committed, an animated prime-time failure during the height of The Simpsons' popularity isn't among NBC's.

In the early-90s, The Simpsons proved to be a surprise hit, and one that helped Fox hold its head against the big three networks. To cash in on this and gain some of Fox's viewers, the big three networks tried their hands at prime-time animation.

ABC produced Capitol Critters, a show about mice with a political slant. A few years later they'd produce The Critic, which frankly held up poorly, then they did Clerks: The Animated Series dirty. Well fine, less episodes means less stiffs, plus ABC was too busy milking Who Wants to be a Millionaire?.

CBS made not one, but two attempts. Fish Police which is considered the worst of the three, for some reason, and Family Dog, comprising of staff from Animaniacs and, frankly, deserves more scorn than Fish Police. You dodged a good opportunity Saberspark, and this show has garbage animation. Family Dog was so bad that CBS never aired another animated sitcom ever again (their streaming service doesn't count as it's separate from the main network)

NBC couldn't make it past the pilot for this show (there was another one, but the guy I found it from gives me the creeps.), but just know they had no short-term runs for their sitcoms, they never happened. Ironically, NBC would try more than ABC and CBS later on, ironically enough. They would acquire Stressed Eric (prophetic for how they'd do American adaptations of British shows), they aired God, The Devil and Bob and Sammy in 2000, only stopping due to a management shift, but would try again in 2004 with Father of the Pride. By then, they had better shows to go by.

History

The Jackie Bison Show was created by Bob Illes and James R. Stein, who had also created Amen a few years before, this being one of their only two hurrahs. The show was co-produced by production company and talent management firm Brillstein Grey Productions, of Larry Sanders, NewsRadio, Just Shoot Me, Mr. Show, The Sopranos, Politically Incorrect and According to Jim fame. Ironically, the later incarnation of them, Brad Grey Television, would produce Sammy for NBC in 2000.

The animation was produced at Broadcast Arts in New York. They had previously produced the first season of Pee-Wee's PlayHouse (and for some irony, they share the same director, Peter Rosenthal), Broadcast Arts would later rebrand as Curious Pictures and go on to produce short films before really getting their foot in the door with projects by Mo Willems and Matt Warburton, you know what they are.

I botched this up top, but this actually predates ABC's and CBS' sitcoms by about three years. This came out in 1990, around the time The Simpsons' first season was airing, think they were just trying to strike out on their own, while the producers wanted to experiment a bit.

On the show's YouTube upload, the comments were disabled due to YouTube's COPPA concerns, which led to a comment by Bob Illes getting removed. All I could remember from it was that interference reared its head into the ring.

Surrender

I think the biggest issue with the show is that of the directions you'd expect it to take, it's one with less staying power. The Jackie Bison Show seems to be setting up an anthology-style setting, where Jackie would either perform skits or retellings of events in his life, or just having these play out as is. I imagine it would've gotten dull very fast.

Jackie isn't particularly interesting, with someone like him I imagine it would be better if he stepped away from his famous life, with drama being around those trying to get him to perform again and those he had left behind to pursue his previous life. The characters are hardly interesting, I can't even refer to them by name. Aside from Jackie who I know by default due to the title, he has a lady friend who has a crush on him but, say it with me, he is too oblivious to realize it.

Only other standouts are a bird Jackie has in a cage, I like how it answers the question on pets in an anthro world. Plus some human who people apparently love to death. I don't know what this is meant to be a reference to, people hated the kid-type inclusions even during this era. I don't know if this was a stab at the network, I, fuck, I really don't know.

The story presented in this isn't any better either. Oh, tell me, ever heard of a woman claims to be in love with a guy but is only in it for his money? Of course you have, and this is played as paint by numbers as you'd expect. To sell anybody on a show, you gotta make it pop right away. A simple premise can work with unique characters and settings to go against. This show just has talking animals.

You can forgive the show for being like this as Brillstein Grey were primarily focused on stand-up comedy, but Stein and Illes produced a sitcom, one that has a story to it. I can see why networks didn't touch animation, they can't blend their brand with animation, and it shows here. With animation you can get away with a lot more than you could with live action, so it's fair to expect them to go above and beyond.

Animation

I'm mixed. At the very least the show has a style I can easily associate to it, on the other hand, it doesn't look very good. The animation's stiff, I even noticed a big inconsistency well into the pilot. This lack of polish is expected if you don't intend for your pilot to get picked up, but if it's the opposite, you gotta spend enough time to make sure it's fit to air.

Overall

Was it better that this show never got past the pilot, or worse? ABC and CBS basically went by a weak prayer when they tried prime-time sitcoms. NBC never bothered, or just came out early enough to avoid the tombstone gag in that episode of Treehouse of Horror.

The entire show felt like a missed opportunity, sky's the limit when you pick the brain of a comedian who wants to get back to simpler living, or go into the inner workings of stand-up comedy. At the very least I can commend them for not following the same route of The Simpsons, but they needed a better concept to sell people on the idea of a series.

Somehow, someway, I feel Brad Grey felt the same way, which is why Sammy focuses on the personal life of an actor. Hope someone finds the episodes, I think I'll have a lot more fun with that show than I did this pilot.

Some dogs deserve to lie.