Techtite's TV Reviews!

"Whatever writers [this series was] able to grab clearly had no idea where to go with a sitcom about animals, so they eroded the story into a sitcom cliché..."

---from the review

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(Commentary) What Went Wrong With...Father of the Pride...?

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Letters; we get letters! As we get letters about a review, we like to link to some of them. Here is the top of the e-mailbag for this review:

"I don't see how it got a so called "burnout" rating..."

And now, a Public Service Message About Drugs... Or...not. Sorry; we've all heard the sordid tales about drug use, so I'm not about to cut and paste them here. Nor am I going to go into such serious topics, in a "sidebar" to a TV show review of a cartoon series. Nope.

What I am going to talk about, however, is how stupid an idea it is to use drugs as the concept of a sitcom's third episode.  What kind of script writers would actually think that the third episode, of any sitcom, must be one which all but promotes the use of drugs? This humorless tirade is practically telling us that, boo-hoo, there are worse things a daughter can do than use them, and ha-ha the parents take drugs by accident, and tee-hee don't they look just sooo funny, but heh-heh the drugs are actually owned by the grandfather who uses them all the time, so har- de- har- har- har what's the problem? Please, writers of this series: off to the Betty Ford center with you! Maybe when you get out, you can write scripts that are actually funny. Too bad that will be long after Father of the Pride has already been cancelled.

Father of the Pride

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A Review by Techtite

I could never, in one short review, totally express my disappointment with Father of the Pride. It's a sad mish-mash of what could have been, versus what was easier to do. What this series could have been is the first sitcom for the 21st century: snappy new dialog, hip jokes, and a novel spin on dated sitcom formulae. What we get instead is a computer-animated rehash of every single "dumb fat husband next to svelte brainy wife" sitcom that is about a dime-a-dozen these days. 

Yes, it's computer animated, but even by now, this is old news. Okay; maybe you're not going to throw a bone to children's fare like Jimmy Neutron, Max Steel, and the sadly under-appreciated Reboot. They weren't on prime time, after all. However, this year alone marked the release of both Tripping the Rift and Game Over; both on prime time, albeit at opposite ends of the "success" meter. The point is: animated series can no longer call themselves "good" just because they use computer animation. Take away the computer animation, and what do you have? 28 years ago, the cast of The Muppet Show could have offered the exact same show that is offered here. No; that comment is unfair; The Muppet Show had very novel humor back in 1978. This is a 2004 series with 28 year old jokes. That's far worse.

Not that the show's premise didn't have potential. At its core, this is a unique tale about the lives of all of the many animals used for the flashy stage shows of Las Vegas; in particular the ones owned by Siegfried & Roy. The star attraction of this "jungle" is Larry the Lion (voiced by John Goodman), who along with wife Kate (Cheryl Hines) and daughter Sierra (Danielle Harris), lives a flashy life among the wild menagerie of Vegas show animals. Even better; the series is produced by the same producers behind the Academy Award winning film, Shrek. Cool.

Here's where the idea starts to turn sour. Although this series was made by the producers of Shrek, it does not have the same writers, nor the directors. Whatever writers they were able to grab clearly had no idea where to go with a sitcom about animals, so they eroded the story into a sitcom cliché, about a chubby schlep husband (Larry) and his skinny, understanding wife (Kate). The result each week is not unlike seeing someone crack open a walnut with a sledgehammer. Someone spent millions of dollars here to offer us the exact same sitcom plots we've seen elsewhere, every single season.

Here's a rough outline of the series premiere, to give you an idea. Larry wants a romantic evening with Kate, only to see that Kate invited her Whiney Obnoxious Friend to the house. A new guy is in the neighborhood, so hey; why not hook them up? Kate tries to compliment The New Guy to ease his fears. The New Guy promptly falls for Kate. Whiney Obnoxious Friend feels betrayed, even though only a total idiot would feel "betrayed" that The New Guy fell for Kate, who is married (should I take this time to confess, no matter how many times I've seen this story, how totally stupid this story is?). In walks the patriarch of the family, and sits the two nerds down, telling them they should just be happy they found each other. End of story.

What makes my disliking the premiere all the more strong is in it making the two "nerds" of the story into pandas. The resulting episode is filled with so much bile against pandas, it's nearly enough to make a call to the ASPCA. The "joke" here is based on the real-life struggle of trying to get endangered pandas to mate with one another in captivity. This episode wants us to believe this is so, because pandas are fat, stupid, whiney, annoying little dweebs. Sure, this might sound potentially humorous when I tell you that the Panda "couple" is voiced by Lisa Kudrow and Andy Richter. Yet Lisa and Andy deliver their lines so gratingly, it's a challenge to not press the "Mute" button as quickly as a car crash victim pressing the control to his morphine drip in the emergency ward.

Yeah, I know: "It was only one episode." Yeah; that's what I thought too. "Maybe later episodes had better stories." Then the second episode is about a rival sabotaging Larry's stage show audition and Larry wants to get back at him before the Big Show blah-blah-blah. Episode three was yet another tirade about how parents should be more understanding about their kids taking drugs because they took them themselves when they were kids (?!?!?). Then came episode four; you know, the much-ballyhooed, this-one-had-better-work tirade, that is to guest star "Donkey" from Shrek...? Sorry; that sucks, too. In that episode, Larry wants to impress kids at his child's school, so he convinces them that he knows Donkey personally, and can get Donkey to visit the school...even when they've never even met. Oh for crying out loud, gentlemen; you're copying old episodes of The Brady Bunch, now? What's really pathetic about all this is; these people are probably going to copy old episodes of The Munsters and I Dream of Jeannie next, and get a million dollars an episode doing it. Man, am I ever in the wrong business.

It all comes down to the jokes. That said, allow me to ask: "What Jokes?" Fat annoying pandas are not funny. Fat dumb lions are not funny. Skinny brainy lioness "wives" are not funny. This. Show. Is. Not. Funny! Maybe someday this animation team can offer something worthy of their talent. Father of the Pride is not it.

                                                                    ---Techtite

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