Archive for category Animation
The Call For Adventure is Too Loud
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Television, Uncategorized, Writing on July 30, 2019
Disney’s new animated show, Amphibia, is weirdly inconsistent. It feels like an amalgamation of a lot of other popular cartoons: it has Adventure Time’s idyllic-but-dangerous-beneath-the-surface world-building; it has Gravity Falls’ dark, understated secrets from characters and locations alike; it has Steven Universe’s sense of gradual, revelatory pacing. It suddenly will burst into Spongebob Squarepants levels of absurd silliness, or utilize a children storybook-like essence akin to the late, underrated Harvey Beaks. Amphibia wants to be a lot of things other than itself, and while it is possible for an animated show to explore an assortment of thematic ideas, styles, and genres, Amphibia struggles because its premise–a young girl finds herself magically transported into a world of frogs–never congeals into something specific. In other words, if you randomly caught an episode, you probably would never guess that Anne even wants to go home.
Amphibia’s weird inconsistency creates a number of issues (since there’s no wifi, Anne just must have a shitload of TV shows on her phone), but one concern I mentioned over on Twitter is that she doesn’t possess a real drive to get home, nor seems to want to figure out any information on how she got to this frog-filled world, nor desires to find out what this frog-filled world is all about. When she, Hop Pop, Sprig, and Polly (the latter three being the frog family she’s currently living with) head to The Archives to do research, finally, she absolutely dreads it. Instead, her attention turns to Sprig’s idea, who gleefully, excitedly wants to go off onto “an adventure”. This adventure, whatever it may be, is purposeless. It’s just more exciting than boring ol’ reading. Sprig’s desire to go off into a random, dangerous adventure is so strong that he literally sabotages The Archives itself, trapping everyone inside it, so they are forced to figure out how to escape. Even in the nutty, anything-goes vibe of the show, this is a pretty messed up thing to do. But it’s also a good example of an overall trend in cartoons these days: just finding adventure for the sake of it has become overused, a somewhat lazy replacement over actually creating a plot or goal through which adventures should occur.
I tweeted about this while watching the new CN cartoon Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, about a stylized, chibi-esque, heroic cat who wants to become a legend among his already legendary family of heroes. (The tweet got a bit of pushback, which prompted me to clarify myself here.) Mao Mao wants to prove himself. To achieve this goal, he needs adventures. He values those adventures. He even has list of four elements every adventure must have to even be considered an adventure. His need for said adventures fit his personality, an oversized ego of speed and power, a modern-day Darkwing Duck, who wants to live up to his family’s legacy. I can’t say the same for Adorabat, the soft-voiced, ambitious sidekick who cries for the need for adventure… because she’s bored? She wants to train under Mao Mao, but for no specific reason other than it looks cool and she can be awesome, and, like Sprig, she also conjures up a nonsensical, unstable situation so she can force an adventure on her mentor during a moment of self-doubt.
Characters “wanting to go on an adventure” or “learning to be an adventurer,” whatever that even means, solves a lot of narrative problems. It sounds concrete enough to be a strong character motivator, but just vague enough to allow for almost limitless number of situations to structure an episode around. It’s also silly enough to allow writers to open up a lot of winking, self-aware jokes about adventuring in general. Sprig’s desire for adventure is, as quoted: “Wouldn’t we be better off preparing [for adventure] by diving headfirst into deadly situations?”. Mao Mao’s list of things every adventure must have is also a good example. And DuckTales contains so many episodes that were “about adventuring” that it arguably hurt the first half of its first season. Dewey’s desire to be an adventurer like his uncle Scrooge is, if you think about it, meaningless; far more interesting is Dewey’s desire to connect with Scrooge on a deeper, more emotional level through adventuring, which ended up being better handled with the search for his mother instead.
This all raises a question: what does “wanting to go on an adventure” even mean? It’s nebulous, non-specific, and open-ended. It feels character-defining, and in a way, a total, direct commitment to that concept could indeed be character-defining (Mao Mao’s thirst for adventure is based on that need to be accepted among his ancestors). Most of the times though, it’s not (Sprig and Adorabat only seems to want to do it cause they’re bored), and even with the cases that combine “desires for adventure” with “thrill-seeking personality” or “need to live up to legacies,” creators often downplay the depth of personality needed to sell that desire and instead overplay the comedic, winking, throwaway aspects of wanting those adventures. Mao Mao and OK KO both are literally structured as worlds defined by adventures around every corner; just existing in them means you will find yourself in danger everywhere you go. DuckTales is a bit more narrow, in that only members of the over-extended Duck family are constantly “trapped” in these adventurous situations, but considering the show is about them, any other consideration is rendered moot.
The self-aware desire for adventure has another inherent issue. In the tweet thread I made, I mentioned that it “killed the stakes,” which was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I do regret saying it in that way. What I meant was more that it removes the weight of life-or-death stakes when characters shrug off, or welcome, any threat that they could die from. And look, I am very much aware that very few, if any, cartoons will actually kill off its main characters, or even its secondary characters. In that way, being self-aware about characters wanting to rush blindly into adventure is hedging your bets; since you can’t really harm your characters, you might as well make fun of the fact you can’t harm them (Amphibia, specifically, hedged its bets early by dropping a lot of gags about characters literally dying or being killed, something that’s usually taboo among kids shows). Characters getting into dangerous scrapes but ultimately escaping them is a guaranteed part of the narrative landscape, so might as well just play the whole thing as a lark.
This sounds like harsh criticisms, but I don’t mean them to be; I actually quite like all of these shows (although Amphibia’s inconsistency feels like it’ll be troubling in the long run, and Disney dropping the entire first season in two months feels increasingly like a burnoff). I was just struck suddenly how many cartoons utilize this trope now, at least at some level. It’s fine, it’s fun, it’s cute, and often has enough oomph to carry a show, or at least a character, through the bulk of the narratives. It’s just becoming a bit too common, and I’m beginning to miss characters who are, you know, actually scared about dying during an adventure. Characters who are worried, concerned, scared, who have to dig deep to propel themselves through a dangerous situation, or at the very least, struggle through adventure on the way for another, more specific goal, other than the desire for adventure for the sake of adventure.
And there’s another, more “social” issue with this approach, which is trickier to explain. There’s something… specific about being confident enough to explore the world, everything that is known and unknown, knowing full well that you’re likely capable of surviving it, of getting through it with no consequences or trauma from the experience. It feels broadly false, or, more accurately, only conceivable to a narrow audience flush with the means to handle it. Perhaps its wealth. Perhaps its familial or communal support. Exploring or adventuring a perilous space with no interference from parents or authority figures, a developed education/skillset, an internal self-mastery in recovery, and so on… that the sheer breadth of adventures can even be treated as antidote to tedium, instead of the kind of palm-sweaty tension it should be, feels privileged, for lack of a better word. For another sect of young viewers, going on these kinds of adventures is dangerous, where police are all to ready to kill them and other adults treat them like garbage, where their lack of education and questionable health will leave them vulnerable, where hostilities are way too overwhelming than the vague beasts, obstacles, or traps that litter these so these adventures. To one sect of the population, just living life is an adventure. To another sect, living life is more akin to survival.
In other words, sometimes going on adventures is terrifying. Downplaying the fallout of a raw adventure makes good fodder for comedy, and it’s fine to play around with it in the basic, rawest sense, but even as the stakes escalate, there’s very little chance that the dangers, conflicts, and obstacles seem like they’ll be overwhelming, that maybe, things will go too far. (A rare exception took place in the low-key, intriguing Amazon Prime show Danger and Eggs, in which the excitable, adventure-seeking Danger suffers a near-fatal asthma attack in the midst of an off-book venture.) For the most part, sure, characters may scream, run, and sweat in a temporary fear, but the solution is always around the corner, and rare does any character actually, truly think that they may genuinely not make it back home. Admittedly, this would take a certainly amount of self-reflection and consideration, time that most shows do not really have. Still, these shows could make the time if that inherent fear was ever present, or the goals of such adventures were more personal, more meaningful, than simply the desire for life-threatening excitement.
The Best Kids Cartoons of 2017
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Television, Uncategorized, Writing on April 22, 2018
10) The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show
This reboot quietly surged onto the Netflix lineup in 2015, the televisual spinoff of the 2014 movie of the same name. Unlike the rough, scattered, and tonally-misguided nature of the film, The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show re-jiggered itself into an odd late-night talk show parody, in which historical figures guest starred among random comedy bits hosted by Mr. Peabody and Sherman themselves. This was mixed with a story more akin to the classic Rocky and Bullwinkle short from which it was derived, in which the dog-father and son save history from some random bout of nonsense. All educational pretext was all but gone by the second season, and by its fourth, the show just delighted in its absurdity, with exaggerated animation reminiscent of Jay Ward’s original designs, but coupled with a whole host of kooky characters, kookier historical persons, and the kookiest ideas in animated TV.
The episodes lived and died primarily on the commitment to its conflicts, and nothing could break them out of a weak story, but with a good premise, The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show was hilarious and inventive, with some great musical bits and solid jokes. Plus, the show never shied from emphasizing how much love that was shared between Mr. Peabody and his son, a fact that overcame some of the weaker bursts of character development. The premieres and finales of each season, which focused on Mr. Peabody and Sherman outside of the late-night talk show venue in some fashion, were so strong that they almost suggest that these characters could function on a show outside of the time-travel elements. The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show implied that there were more episodes coming, but it looks unlikely; regardless, its heartfelt musical finale was a grand culmination of everything that came before it.
9) Tangled: The Series
There’s a bit of an old-school style to Tangled: The Series, particularly as it embraces a more adventurous, bolder direction. It reminds me of the Aladdin or The Little Mermaid TV shows, which thrived with new adventures and characters that work way better than you’d expect, and probably don’t remember. Tangled: The Series focuses on Rapunzel in a post-tower world, reunited with her parents and safe with her love, her best friend, and the Corona castle walls that now protect her. After a promising premiere, Tangled wallowed a bit with some entertaining but ultimately hollow one-offs, even though they did enough to flesh out the world and the kind of characters within it. Still, a lot of those characters, as wonderfully charismatic as they are, are lacking. Many feel random and fleeting, popping into an episode brimming with vitality but ultimately disappearing without making a real impression. And some of the more important characters come out of nowhere and suddenly become integral to the story – Xavier the blacksmith, for example.
But by “Queen For A Day,” Tangled: The Series buckles down, hard. It returns to the complex, confusing portrayal of a woman suffering from PTSD who is thrust into the intensity of a leadership role during a dangerous, strenuous time. It begins the villainous origin story of a young boy hurt from a broken promise, a story that is filled with nuance but never shies away from its “nice guy” toxic masculinity. And it expands the mystical, mysterious elements that backends the Tangled world in a way that feels a lot more substantive and informative than its past episodes did. By slowing down and narrowing its focus on a growing, developing story arc centered around Rapunzel’s insecurities, Tangled: The Series, like its protagonist, found its way.
8) Little Witch Academia
The fusion of eastern and western tropes in animation seem to be small but growing trend in the field of animation, and Little Witch Academia is one of the results. Its story about a young girl named Akko who is so dedicated to her dream of being a witch that her annoyances are as particular as her perhaps unearned determination, to the point that it becomes endearing to watch her refusal to give up a remarkable delight. Immersing oneself into the world of Luna Nova Magical Academy, while following the trials and tribulations of Akko and her roommates, Lotte and Sucy, is worth the plunge; the world and the stories told about it are so unique, different, and hilarious that it’s worth a second watch-through, just to see how smart and expansive it really is. Plus, its long-term story arc comes fast and harshly, changing the dynamic of the second season’s back-half, only to come roaring back with a dramatic, powerful finale.
Little Witch Academia’s narratives move so fast and deeply that at times, major plot information that’s crucial to understanding a story are dropped so quickly and nonchalantly that it’s easy to get very confused about what characters are concerned about. It also short-changes some of its tertiary characters, who feel more established to flavor the world than add to the overall impact of Akko’s goal (although I will not entertain any bad-mouthing of Amanda). The shift from an insular, strange school of diverse girls to an adventurous team-up between Akko and pseudo-rival Diana, while well-supported in the narrative, does feel somewhat narrow, perhaps in a broad attempt to push against the cliche of the passionate novice vs. stuck-up veteran conflict between them. Yet even though the show never quite hones in on exactly why Akko is as fervent as she is about wanting to make people happy with magic, it comes close enough, and just accepting that motivation provides just the right context to enjoy what this show offers.
7) Future-Worm
As mentioned last year, Future-Worm brilliance, and its comfort in its brilliance, is not only in re-establishing Rick and Morty’s aggressive-yet-ambivalent sci-fi milieu away from that show’s overwrought intellectual nihilism into a nonsensical, yet heavily endearing story (all unofficially sanctioned by Justin Roiland himself), but also in its able to do all that via its specific format, in which every episode is divided into thirteen, seven, and three minute segments. This structure allows for Future-Worm to play with continuity and time in unique, hilarious, and inventive ways, in which events from various segments infuse, correlate, and connect to others in unexpected manners. It’s a show that structurally and narratively binds itself in knots yet manages to maintain a sense of clarity that continues to amaze. (Imagine the time-jump stylistic storytelling of HBO’s Westworld, but told via TV segments vs. one multilayered episode; add the the Rick and Morty post-credits endtag, and you get a broad idea of Future-Worm’s tone.).
I will admit that I was somewhat disappointed by the recent episodes, which never quite utilized the bizarre structures and visuals like the first run of episodes did. There were some great moments, like bringing together Neil Degrass Tyson and Bill Nye as super powerful, buff soldiers with telekinesis, and the even hysterically throw-away origin story for Future-Worm himself, which takes up about fifteen seconds of screen time. But even as the characters move forward in fun ways, including some much-needed development of weirdo outside characters like Presto the wannabe child magician, it was unfortunate to see it never take control of those narrative/structural dynamics like it did earlier. But in some ways, that’s the point: Future-Worm never compels its audience to pay attention to the details. There’s a wealth of depth and connective tissue in the backstory underlying almost all the stories and asides that pop up in an typical episode, but Future-Worm almost demands you ignore it, since Danny and the cast mostly does as well. It’s smart, but never demands you have a certain amount of intelligence to get it.
6) Hotel Transylvania: The Series
Who would have expected this seemingly throwaway TV spinoff based on the decidedly average Hotel Transylvania movies would be as quietly sharp as it is? The fact that Disney bought the rights to a Sony Animation show should give you a clue. Hotel Transylvania: The Series possesses a comfortable narrative understanding of its stories and the characters within it, allowing a secondary motivational effort to drive the plot beyond the tropes that would springboard most animated protagonists. Mavis bounces between wanting to be a “normal” teen and desiring the respect from her evil aunt, while growing more and more lonely from missing her father, Dracula himself (he’s away on some kind of vague vampire conference). A solid cast of monsters surround Mavis’ antics, and what makes it stand out are the clever takes it has on various monster tropes. A brief aside in which Mavis sees herself in the mirror for the first time is wonderful, and the old trope of “humans being scarier than monsters” is tweaked a bit so the humans have more variety among them.
There’s a certain confidence in how Hotel Transylvania: The Series executes itself. Similar to Fairly Oddparents, the gags are fast-paced but specific, rewarding those who pay close attention to who says what, and when, and how. The characters are cliched but feel functional on their own, often expressing their disapproval and/or resigned sentiment over yet another one of Mavis’ ridiculous plans, a certain writers’ way to acknowledge its tropes in a meta fashion, allowing it to subvert, disrupt, or exaggerate the storyline, leading to a new, unique, or deeper direction. Mavis starts out as a kid who seeks any crazy way to act a teen within the walls of a corporate monster hotel, but it gradually becomes clear that her behavior is a result of both a desire to appeal, in some way, to her aunt, while deeply missing her father. There’s a quiet heart there, in between the clever uses of monster imagery, over-the-top nonsense, and characters that come close to being too much but never going overboard (Wendy, in particular, is an amazing, clueless sweetheart.)
5) The Amazing World of Gumball
The Amazing World of Gumball continues its strong run of impeccably great visuals and hilarious characters, not letting off the pedal. The story of a young cat boy and his adopted fish brother still remains a smartly funny, brilliant show, with episodes that manages to go to some dark and deep places. “The Worst,” for example, has some pretty trenchant commentary on sexism, while “The Copycats” manages to narrow that idea into a single, brutal takedown of an real-life knockoff of the show itself that inexplicably ignored Anais. Bringing in the “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” people to do a delightfully demented take on the danger of blind nostalgia is another highlight of the show. Beyond anything, Gumball can still bring a confidence in itself that’s unlike any other animated show on TV.
There’s a sense that Gumball is losing its specificity though, as sad as this is to say. It’s still frequently sharp and visually inventive, but the recent run of episodes have struggled to focus on the specific points that usually mark Gumball’s greatest moments. Episodes like “The Nuisance” wants to push back against criticisms of TV and the whole terribleness of most TV characters but gets too caught up in an class-based exclusionary plot – two separate themes the show excelled at before. It feels like the show is also struggling to get to the heart of its weird, varied cast, with moments to develop them tossed aside for an increasing reliance on facial expression gags and smarmy commentary. (The less said about “The Best,” the better.) Still, when Gumball is on, it’s on, with episodes like “The Console” being a pinpoint parody of RPG games, and “The Weirdo,” which explores the pain and the beauty in being odd, in seeing the world differently than the rest of society. Gumball may have loss some of its dramatic heft, but it’s still there when it counts, and its animation continues to be top notch no matter what.
4) Bunnicula
This modern update to the classic book series, in which the titular Bunnicula, Chester, and Harold are in the care of a girl named Mina in a New Orleans apartment complex, while battling (and befriending) various weird creatures and monsters, has, beyond anything else, a strong sense of place. Not just in its setting, which utilizes the iconic Louisiana location in a lot of cool, nifty ways, but in the comfort level of its character interactions. While the first season had a lot of weird, great gags that often propped up the unique love between its characters (despite their many conflicts), the second season really dug its heels and sharpened a lot of the characterizations to make the show pop more. A lot of that may have to do with what appears to be a more streamlined show, with Maxwell Atoms helming the scripts, whose approach seems to prop up creator Jessica Borutski’s direction – which has gotten much richer and more dynamic.
The sharper, bolder feel in both visuals and narratives have pushed Bunnicula in a stronger direction – the rabbit himself is portrayed a lot more heroically, for example, which helps to counter some of his more lightly cruel moment. Harold, a character that never quite found his footing in season one, has finally become a perfect balance between being lovably adorable, immensely loyal, and amusingly ignorant. And Chester is still Chester, but more, which rounds out the cast perfectly. Add to all that a stronger commitment to action and tension – scenes feel a lot more scarier or action-oriented than the first season – and you have yourself a not-perfect but still well-rounded, executed animated show.
3) Steven Universe
Of course Steven Universe would be on here. This show, now pushing into its fifth season and counting, continues to be the rare show that brings heart and respect to its characters still battling a quirky, expansive war between humanity and the Gem-based figures from outer space. At its center is Steven Universe, a lovable, optimistic scamp who has grown into a deep and powerful character himself. Steven continues to be the rock (or, more accurately, the half-Gem) that holds the show together, and it’s through him we learn and see how various characters cope with rather deep issues, such as loss, grief, trauma, abuse, and the complexity of relationships.
This season has focused on a unique, strange “murder” mystery at the center of the entire show, giving some of these later episodes a Law and Order feel, but it still manages to maintain enough excellent filler that deepens the characters as it moves forward. The Homeworld arc, in which Steven and Lars fight for survival on the Gem’s Homeworld has a depth and beauty to it that few shows could match, although the most recent arc struggled because Connie’s motivation to ignore Steven felt undercooked as a catalyst for a full five-parter (it made sense, but I think it needed to explore more thoroughly how Connie arrived at that feeling). But still, with such a great cast, and its commitment to the the warmth and depth of the unique world it exists in, Steven Universe continues to impress.
2) Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh
A surprising, confident, much-needed animated show on Netflix right now, Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh surpasses many quirky shows of a similar type by virtue of being funny, unique, and progressive in small, specific ways – mainly by letting its lead, Tip, drive the show. Tip and Oh are a pair, of course, and together they have the kind of borderline-obnoxious like-love between them that many cartoons pursue in greatly exaggerated directions (similar to the Spongebob/Patrick dichotomy). But Tip herself is such a unique character – a strong, confident, clever, goofy, irritating brash girl: a one-of-a-kind character that is perfect and flawed in her own unique way.
Coupled with narrative improvements that kicked its second and third season into deeper, richer storylines and characterizations, Home embraced a more “fun” sense of itself while minimizing the kind of grotesque dumbness that is usually Thurop Van Orman’s stock-in-trade. Tip’s mom is provided a complex relationship with her sister, while Oh himself has to deal with the wilder-in-context sides of humanity’s weird habits. (He also remains a funny, clueless alien who’s antics with one-note characters like Donny and Kyle allow all the characters to raise their game collectively). But it’s Tip who runs this show, no question. Allowing Rachel Crow, Tip’s VO artist, to read her lines with delicious aggression, and providing more opportunities to allow the former American Idol contestant to sing, Tip, with Oh in tow, prove that safety characters like Sherzod aren’t needed to make this show particularly funny, heartfelt, and special.
1) Neo Yokio
I will acknowledge up front that this entry at number one is deeply, wholly personal, and perhaps not even worth being no where close to being the actual number one in any list. But, by god, no matter where I am or what I’m thinking about, my mind always go back to Neo Yokio, a singularly weird, gloriously perfect, highly specific animated show that almost defies description. At its core, it’s the story of a privileged but depressed teen who’s forced to perform exorcisms at the burdensome request of his aunt, as well as the need to maintain his high-class status – quite literally, as he’s battling for top spots upon an elitist leader board of some sort. But in the aggregate, Neo Yokio is an egregiously, nonsensically logical satire of Eastern animation, Western animation, and television tropes, all mashed up into one delirious six-episode run. Shows a dime a dozen are defined by their commentary and their meta-commentary – “This is a show making fun of other shows!” But Neo Yokio is beyond that. It’s a show that makes fun of other shows… making fun of other shows.
And miraculously, it doesn’t go up its own ass to do so. Neo Yokio is so keenly perspective on how even the details of television tropes are executed that many viewers were left perplexed on whether it was taking itself seriously. It wasn’t, but the hidden impression that it was is a testament to its calculated brilliance. Classical music fills the soundtrack over visuals both breathtaking and inane. An amazing Wes Anderson-sequel shot of tiramisu in front of Kaz Kaan (that name!) is lovely, until it’s interrupted by an amazingly dumb line. Purposely bad sexist politics are bounced around a rip-off Ranma 1/2 storyline. A typical “I may be a celebrity but I’m just as normal as you” character is buttressed by a quick gag so perfect that it’s extremely easy to miss. Also Steve Buscemi voices a crazed judge/jury dude for no reason. The show is wild, and that’s only a small segment of the full craziness of the show.
And yet, that nonsense is there in its own way to ridicule the kind of bad nonsense that shows might come up with to, say, satirize income inequality, class and status, and emotionally, tortured protagonists whose privilege will always remain front and center no matter how aloof they are; the casting of Jaden Smith is the ultimate narrative wink in the whole endeavor. Neo Yokio is defined by nonsensical juxtapositions, from the Eastern/Western aesthetics of its animation and pacing, to the pointed depictions of black Americans controlling spaces both anime-influenced AND wealth-influenced, a depiction that most likely doesn’t exist on TV anywhere in the world. It’s bold in its inanity, comfortable with how it satires, homages, and parodies its various pastiches of televisual tropes, and still manages tell a strong, layered, complex story through it all, even if the final moments are predictable in the way that such narratives tend to be. But Neo Yokio obfuscates its execution with the best “stupid” plays on all the tropes it can muster, making it unlike anything on the air right now. Neo Yokio is off-putting, but in all the right ways, which earns it number one spot here.
The Amazing World of Gumball Recaps: “The Laziest” and “The Ghost”
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Television, The Amazing World of Gumball Recaps, Writing on September 18, 2017
The Amazing World of Gumball S01E06 The Laziest… by Yu-Gi-Oh-the-offical
“The Laziest” – C+
I mentioned this in my last review, but The Amazing World of Gumball will struggle mightily with Richard, perhaps longer than it feels like it should. Richard is the early Homer Simpson, the proto-Peter Griffin: the fat, lazy slob who will only push himself when absolutely necessary or confronted with an absolute obstacle. One of Gumball’s smarted, most slyly cleaver developments will be an adjustment of gender roles. Nicole will lean more on the breadwinner, bill-paying, nine-to-five position, while Richard will be the caretaker and the stay-at-home dad (in incredibly broad terms; the show will blur these lines when the episode calls for it). Right now though, Richard is the laziest person in all of Elmore, and he’s willing to stake a WHOLE WEEK OF CHORES on it.
It’s a fine, if weak, character beat to lean on this early in the show’s run. There have been some bits of character ideas and depth even this early in, but “Richard as the lazy and whiny butt of all jokes” is how they defined the patriarchal pink rabbit, and they’ll utilize that characterization for… perhaps a few seasons longer than necessary. Here, after semi-conning Gumball and Darwin to taking out the trash – a responsibility that was given to him by Nicole – Richard begins a series of competition with his kids concerning the extent of his laziness. First they compete in keeping up with Richard’s unwillingness to move from the couch, then they try to recruit Larry to engage in his past laziness to take their father on. And it’s all fine, cute, and occasionally funny. Yet considering what the show will become – and even compared to the few episodes that we’ve seen so far – it feels all so unnecessary, just a series of gags in which The Amazing World of Gumball takes the lazy dad trope to its extreme.
Except it’s really not to any extreme at all (Gumball will try this idea multiple times throughout the run, and I’d be hard pressed to think of any of them that actually works). The only really inspired, and semi-dark, sequence is the extended scenes in which Gumball and Darwin continually berate and annoy Larry into engaging in their lazy-off with their father, if only due to the insane, wildly-cartoonish ways the episode handles it all. Gumball and Darwin appear in increasingly ridiculous places as their cries of “Please do it, Larry!” become a comically hellish mantra, triggering Larry to lash out at a costumer and his wife, costing him his job and his wife (he loses his car when he leaps out if, unable to escape the sights and sounds of the Watterson boys as well). Larry indeed goes back into his “Lazy Larry” state, but is so lazy that he doesn’t bother with helping the kids. It’s delightfully ironic, an entire bit that the show itself basically declare is a waste of time.
The ironic bits are the strongest elements in the episode – including the bit above, and the also the dick move that Richard pulls at the end. He jumps out of his lethargic state right before Nicole comes home, and she blames the kids for overworking the father while they’re the ones that seem lazy. And that’s… fine, but with no other narrative or thematic to hook that twist with, the end just feels like a mean ironic twist for the sake of it. It feels like the episode is just trying to see if they could get away with that kind of twist, but it doesn’t really add to anything, comedy or story-wise. There is one small bit that worth noting though – the two brief bits that “anthropomorphize” Gumball’s insides, when he’s hopped on sugar and when the subsequent crash hits. Gumball will use both anthropomorphism, exaggerated internal shots, and other cartoonishly perfect metaphors to represent the characters physical and mental states, and this is the first of a long line of brilliant visuals that the show will utilize. There’s elements in this episode that work, but beyond that it’s inessential.
The Ghost – A-
I’m surprised that something as wild and dynamic as “The Ghost” appeared so early in season one. I would have thought this was a late season one, early season two episode. The boldness and specificity of the episode is striking. Hints of body image and dysmorphia, of consent, insecurity, and lack of both underline this episode with quiet but startling clarity. It never quite hones in on any of those topics, but it does brush against them lightly, while also shedding some light into Carrie and exploring the extent of the specificities of the characters. It already did this with Tina, a poor girl who is a dinosaur and lives on garbage and lashes out via bullying, and now it’ll do something similar with Carrie, a young ghost girl who never tasted food or even had a body (the show won’t explain how she died, which is for the best). The show’s gradual development and focus on those classmates will continue with some fantastic episodes, but for now, we’re pretty much on Gumball’s second outing on this approach.
But back to the first point, about the body image and dysmorphia, consent, and insecurity: all those elements are there in the inciting incident of this episode. Carrie envies Gumball and Darwin’s ability to eat and enjoy food, so Gumball allows Carrie to possess his body so she can experience taste again. Well, that’s not quite what happens. Really, Darwin for some reason mentions that Gumball would be totally receptive to having his body possesses, and Gumball clearly is uncomfortable with it. This probably the most “antagonistic” Darwin will be portrayed as, in which his general kindness and naivety is forced upon others. It’s a bit of a manipulation, although one Darwin isn’t often aware of: since he’s nice, then listening to him will result in nice things too. Of course, that’s a clear problem here. Gumball doesn’t want to, you know, lose control of his whole sense of autonomy, but he reluctantly accepts under the guises of being Darwin-nice.
What results is some hilarious and wildly insane bedlam. Carrie’s possession of Gumball is both creepy and hilarious, resulting in a wild, Go-Pro-POV, sped-up shot of possessed-Gumball going on a vicious binge of eating endless amounts of food. It’s a remarkable series of animated bit, both exhilarating and disturbing, especially when it leaves Gumball waking up in a pile of trash with hazy recollections of what happened. The Amazing World of Gumball often skirts that perfect line between comedy and discomfort, and it’s fascinating to see the show really working to emphasize this – from Darwin’s misguided understanding of what it means to be nice, to the desperation Gumball goes to weasel out of it (per his father’s advice), and in particular how the most pointed advice – just saying no (per his mother) – grows into legit danger when Carrie doesn’t accept it.
“The Ghost” has a number of various lines that get hit the point with very little nuance. Richard laughing at a bloated Gumball, only to realize he himself rocks a muffintop, cries, “It’s only funny when it happens to someone else’s body!” which is a direct critique of easy weight-related jokes. Gumball voices a sincerity when he mentions Carrie having “a real problem,” and the loss of what to do about this creates a tension that in itself rivals the back and forth that occurs between Gumball and Carrie, both outside and inside his body. Yet as disturbing as all this is, “The Ghost” doesn’t seem to delve into the full, dark, volatile nature of what exactly is happening. It touches upon all the awkward ways people can manipulate and control others, and also how weight, body image, and dysmorphia can be damaging, but it keeps things on the comic side (which is fine, and preferable at this stage in season one), but it never quite brings those two points together. The ending, in which Carrie just possesses Richard instead, undercuts the depth of the topics in the wrong ways, and even though the show is aware of the irony of the ending (Darwin’s “Another happy ending” declaration is clear), the fleeting nature of the humor overpowers the seriousness of the events. No matter. The Amazing World of Gumball is still testing the waters. It’ll be diving into those topics with full force soon enough.