What Went Wrong?

About This Column::

Good ideas, good qualities...BAD flaws; that's the trouble with many promising entertainment products. Every once in a while there's that one product (movie, television, video, or game) which had it all --concept, sound, visuals-- yet fell like a rock because of a few grating mistakes. Techtite's "What Went Wrong?" commentary examines such titles.

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Earlier What Went Wrong Columns :

---Trespasser (PC)

---Quantum Leap (TV)

---Quest for Glory 3: Wages of War

---Living Dolls (TV)

---3Dfx (!!!)

---Phantasmagoria

---The day this column went on hiatus...

---Roswell (TV)

---Mork & Mindy (TV)

---Electra-Woman & Dyna-Girl (2001, TV)

---Dreamcast (Video Game System, Sega)

---3DO (game system, 1993-1996)

---Atari's Biggest Flops: ET, Pac-Man (Atari 2600)

For the current WWWrong page, click here.

An Analysis Column, by Techtite

The current entertainment product discussed is:

Hey, what if I told you that the new fall season would include the first computer animated series? Well, okay, maybe I can't tell you that, because of Game Over...and Tripping the Rift...and Reboot...and Max Steel...and Jimmy Neutron...and, well, you get the idea. But hey now; this computer animated series is made by the producers of Shrek! That box office smash is sure to lead to a TV series smash hit...at least, that's what we all thought, until it lasted only 11 episodes. Such was the way it was for the series Father of the Pride. What Went Wrong?

First, as always, let's consider the positives...

What Went Right? Okay; so it couldn't be the first actual computer animated series. However, it was the first time either of the four major commercial networks --ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX-- ever attempted such a concept. Sure Reboot will always be known as the first real computer-animated series, but this was the first ever attempted on prime time. That's pretty cool.

So, what was the driving force that got NBC to sign on the dotted line? Probably one sales pitch alone: "from the producers of Shrek." Yeah; that little sales gimmick got us all to watch that series premiere, didn't it? The same producers of the #1 comedy of the year (Shrek 2), and one of the top selling films of all time (the first Shrek), making a CGI cartoon for television? That sounds promising.

That promise certainly fulfilled itself, at least where animation is concerned. It has been said that each episode took nine months to complete, and from an animation perspective, it shows. The animal characters are perfectly rendered, right down to the last tuft of fur. This is, quite honestly, high quality animation.

It also had an imaginative premise. Characters on this series would be Vegas show animals, as owned by Siegfried and Roy. The script possibilities here were enormous. Las Vegas! Animals! Siegried and Roy! Lions! Tigers! Oh my! There was a lot of potential here.

Such broad potential requires time and money to complete. This series had both those problems easily resolved. NBC was so impressed with the sales pitch of this series, word is that they agreed to give the series whatever time and budget it required. According to TV trivia sites like TV Tome, each episode cost around 1.6 million dollars to make, with 9 months to complete. This is good news for the series indeed, when considering how earlier entertainment products mentioned by this column did not have time nor a big budget to complete them.

Equally impressive was the roster of voices. Samorati, the patriarch of the family, would be voiced by none other than Carl Reiner. The lead character of the series was voiced by John Goodman; a man already accustomed to CGI voice acting, after Pixar's Monster's Inc. While the rest of the cast was equally well chosen, let's jump to the guest voices which were equally impressive. Eddie Murphy agreed to guest star, as his character "donkey" from Shrek. Other planned guest voices included Danny DeVito, Lisa Kudrow, and Andy Richter. Man; with a voice cast of comics like that, it's really surprising this show didn't succeed. I know that's a comment best left for the What Went Wrong commentary later on, but...we're just saying.

Then there's the time slot: Tuesday nights at 9. This was the same time slot where Frasier survived for so many seasons, so it's hardly like this was a time slot that doomed the series to failure. True; some critics wondered how this "cartoon" would survive when it had such PG-13 undertones (a la a Shrek-style perspective for its humor), yet this was the same grade of ribald humor that made Frasier such a hit, in the same time slot. Heck, such humor has even been on Simpsons for over a decade, at 8:00 Sunday nights. As for South Park...well, you get the idea. The point is; when it comes to pointing fingers at what's to blame for this show's cancellation, the show's time slot isn't one of them.

Admittedly, this is a pretty long "right" list for a series that lasted only 11 episodes. So let's go over what we've covered so far: a series with a great time slot...with great animation...with a great budget...with a lot of time to make each episode...with a great cast of voices...and a great premise. What in the heck did go wrong here, may we ask? 

Well, let's not ask; let's discuss it, since that's why we're here...

What Went Wrong? The cornerstone of this series' errors is actually quite common: not getting what you pay for. Sure, each episode cost around 1.6 million dollars to make, with 9 months to complete, but consider how this raises the bar for expectations. It would've been one thing if the writers/directors had a lack of time or budget. This show had neither worry...so what happened?

That question seems all the more powerful, this being "from the producers of Shrek." But think about that for a sec: producers. "Producers," as in: not the directors, nor the writers. The chosen writers and directors were simply not used to handling big budget entertainment like Shrek. Take the series premiere for example, as written by Cheryl Holliday and directed by Mark Risley. Cheryl's first writing gig was for FOX's Herman's Head; Mark's prior directorial work was for a Nickelodeon cartoon, The Wild Thornberrys. We're just saying.

Making matters worse was how the chosen writers knew less about what to do with the series' unique concept, and relied instead on tired sitcom formulae, seen year after year. Gone was the potential intrigue of lions in Vegas, replaced with a stale cliché about a fat dimwit husband and his svelte understanding wife. Such an old-hat sitcom formula is quite common these days: King of Queens, According to Jim, Listen Up, Still Standing...you've seen them, or at least you know of them. Sure, shows like According to Jim have been on the air for what seems like many years, but would it have lasted as long if it cost 1.6 million per episode?

It didn't help when the script writers weren't even coming up with original scripts. Sure they changed a piece of the story or two for simple continuity (a questionable substance in their teenager's belongings was now "catnip"), but a stale script can never become "fresh" no matter how you change it. Yet out of only 11 episodes, at least half were quite obvious rehashes, from sitcom plots from over 30 years ago. Here's half a dozen of them to give you an idea, plus the classic sitcom episode it looked like (in some cases, scene for scene):

• Episode 1: Larry wants a girl to just go away. Kate tries to play matchmaker and help boy meet girl, only to have the boy fall for Kate instead. (I Love Lucy, episode 20, "The Young Fans").
• Episode 2: A rival makes Larry look like a fool so said rival can be the star of a TV show, instead of Larry. Can Larry fix his reputation in time? (The Monkees, episode 23, "Captain Crocodile")
• Episode 3: Larry and Kate find cigarettes --oops; my bad: catnip-- in their child's belongings. Turns out the catnip belongs to someone else. (The Brady Bunch, episode 39, "Where There's Smoke")
• Episode 4: Larry makes a promise that he can get Donkey from Shrek to visit the local school. The problem: they've never even met. (The Brady Bunch, episode 61, "Getting Davey Jones")
• Episode 9: Kate offends a group of turkeys, so she invites some of them over to dinner, to "show" them how she isn't racist (The Jeffersons, episode 54, "A Case of Black and White").
• Episode 10: Kate destroys her dad's pride and joy zebra rug, and tries to cover up the error. Aside from it being a rug and not a cheap vase, this episode seemed a bit too similar to: (The Brady Bunch, episode 37, "Confessions, Confessions")

Yet the point isn't that the series used old plots. The point is: they chose plots that had nothing to do with animals. Couldn't they have had fun with the concept? Imagine if in one episode, young lion cub Hunter ran away from home; a classic sitcom plot indeed, except he's a runaway lion in the middle of Vegas. What a riotous upheaval that would've been! That's just one of many plots that would've been a lot better than "Heh-heh; that fat panda is in love with a lioness! Isn't that funny?"

It isn't like NBC didn't try to get their money's worth, however. Looking at the series premiere --filled to the brim with so much bile against pandas, it was actually quite unnerving-- I have no doubt the top brass at NBC felt the same thing most adults did: ugh. So they did what anyone would do in such circumstances: release the series premiere weeks before the actual fall season, and hope for the best. The sales gimmick worked for many weeks. In fact, in typical network trickery, commercials for upcoming episodes could call it the "#1 watched comedy last week." Well, of course it was...during the summer, with no new programming. Then the actual fall season began, and...well, let's put it this way. The series was actually bumped so NBC could have 90 minute episodes of The Biggest Loser. That's pretty bad.

Sure, young kids who have never seen The Brady Bunch will probably be very sad that this series is now off the air. But hey, think of it this way. All you really need to do is tune into a re-run of Brady Bunch, and you'll likely see the same scripts this series would've eventually ripped off anyway.

Yet such fans may want us to leave on a high note, so here it is: this series is now available on DVD, in its entirety. While cynics may wonder how much of a piece of good news this truly is, perhaps at least kids can pretend it was what was promised: a funny comedy about lions. If they can do that, sure; put another fine example of flawed sitcom formulae on your DVD shelf. If they cannot...there's always the litter box!

---Techtite