When it comes to rip-offs... the prospect has been ruined. People see a Georgian cartoon featuring yellow people and rather than focus on the irony of them attacking Russian culture but rarely going after their own culture, lol dur, Simpsons rip-off.
Coconut Fred Fruit Salad Island, I don't know came up with the idea that it ripped off SpongeBob but one, it's technically more of a rip-off of Camp Lazlo, especially since we have a grumpy counselor and an impish assistant, a dementedly optimistic lead, twins who happen to be dumb as dirt... 2. Whoever made that claim probably believed that Sanjay and Craig was somehow a rip-off of a show about two mentally disabled groundskeepers.
Wild Grinders, it looks uglier than The Nutshack but whether or not it's a Rocket Power rip-off... it was created by a professional skateboarder. Still seems like a shitty show. Pixel Pinkie, hardly a rip-off of Fairly Odd Parents, but then again it's like comparing two turds. I can't even sit through an entire episode of the show. Johnny Test, it's likely it predated Dexter's Laboratory in terms of the pilot but hold up, it's getting a reevaluation of sorts for its earlier seasons?
Point is, people are so focused on what these shoes resemble that they hardly focus on the finer details. So of all these, why am I focusing on Fleabag Monkeyface? I saw it on IMDb, decided to check out an episode and knowing what it entails... I kinda liked it.
Background
Fleabag Monkeyface is based on a series of children's books of the relatively same name. The show came out around 2011 and lasted until 2012. It was a British and Signaporean co-production, though mainly attributed to its financier and animation studio. The show is credited to animation studio Sparky Animation and the kids division of documentary studio Impossible Pictures.
There are two other companies credited to this, Editude Pictures and the production arm of Walker Books, who had published the books this show was based on. Editude's based in Signapore and may account for financing there. Along with that the show was funded by Ingenious, aka that logo you see on many b-flicks or the occasional good movie. Just years before they funded the second series ever created by Jeff Muncy, who brought us Pet Alien. Just a little trivia.
While this was one starred to hell on IMDb, uploads of the episode surprisingly manage to hold more likes than dislikes. The same can't be said for Pixel Pinkie, which is why I bring it up.
At large
It's simple, just the day to day adventures of two boys and their gross concoction named (title of this show). Also this chicken themed villain who tries to get his TV show back after the two boys and the gross concoction replace him. Think Janet Hubert but more determined to become Aunt Viv again.
I had gone into this expecting Fleabag to be this incredibly annoying... thing of annoyance, but you're talking to the guy who has put up with Lazlo, got annoyed right away with Coconut Fred, Fleabag is a breath of fresh air, which is in the form of a toxic belch. He's not painfully naive to the world around him, at least from what I've seen.
The show is self-aware, not to the point of addressing the fact they are in an episode, but rather aware of its gross nature. Like they know it's nothing special, this is going by the book I have never read in my life. But apparently this is just part of their show. It'd make more sense if it was a video series given the infrequent nature of it and how it's rarely acknowledged. I mean if it's by camcorder and just sending recordings of it for air on TV, I'm going for practicality here, less this is like some Jackass scenario.
I do like how they set up a pool full of muck, and Fleabag didn't joke about making it a jacuzzi, just that it needs more muck.
Also, the voice acting suggests that they recorded in America, but actually the cast is made up of American actors living in the United Kingdom, one of them being Teresa Gallagher, who you may better recognize as Dennis' mother from the British version of Dennis the Menace. Also the mother of some incredibly obscure Cartoon Network show, something about chewing gum or something.
The first time I watched the show, I had a can of beer. The second time without it, it's the same thing. I don't hate this at all. The worst this show may throw at me is repetition, but there was never a reason for me to give up on the show. I've met my limits before, and I was never close with this.
Regarding an episode where the chicken man creates a swamp monster that turns out to provide good publicity for the boys, I like how they don't take credit for it while their superior does. It helps to make the dynamic more believable, at least in my opinion. One thing I like is that I expect it to be gross, and get surprised when they subvert my expectations on gross out cliches.
Not to mention, scenes that seem awkward or padded out actually have some significance; chicken man imprinted on the swamp monster and views it as its mother. It makes more sense than you think, especially since it helps to expose chicken man as the one behind all this mess. I can't even be mad at Fleabag's blatant gross out gags because that's part of his character.
Maybe I just have a stronger stomach for gross out?
Animation
The animation for this show is fairly standard early-2010s television CG animation. There are some occasional jumps between motions, but it plays out fairly well.
But some of you more seasoned viewers are not in for that. Why did I go into that tirade about rip-off shows? Because people claim this is a rip-off of Fanboy and Chum Chum. Okay, I do see some similarities with art styles. I want to say that it's all a coincidence and that staff worked on both shows, but Sparky Animation never worked on Fanboy and Chum Chum to my knowledge, the art directors never worked on Fanboy and Chum Chum, at best this is just a play on the art style in the books.
However, this is based on visual similarities, other than that our characters aren't cosplaying as superheroes, there is no monkey concoction at least one similar to Fleabag, there is no evil janitor, no giant bully to the protagonists, no comic book collector, no arctic-based superhero, no obsession with slushes, no obsessed fangirl to my knowledge, no wizard of sorts, it's almost as if people are so quick to claim something is a rip-off based on visual standards that they don't bother to consider the finer details.
I will say this, the lead white boy looks like Jimmy Neutron and George (whoever the white kid from Captain Underpants was) took part in a splicing experiment and created their own son. He and the other boy are visually distinct from the other characters and they look like they would never belong in Fanboy and Chum Chum.
Final Thoughts
So, is this a rip-off? No. Is it easy to see why people would think it is? Yes. At its core this is the kind of show that's only good if you're in the mood for it. It's not as annoying as you'd think it is, the grossout is a big presence but not to an insufferable extent, I've seen worse, way worse, this doesn't even come close.
So, case closed, people are full of shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHWOtRouFGU
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