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Director: Greg Franklin
Release date: March 18, 2010
Rating: ★
Review:
‘Drawn Together’ was an adult animation series created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein that ran on Comedy Central from 2004 to 2007. The premise of the series was promising: animation heroes from different styles of animation film living together in one house in what was supposed to be “the first animated reality TV series”. Thus we watch e.g. a Disney Princess (Princess Clara), a Betty Boop-like character called Toot, rendered in black and white, a weird yellow classic cartoon character called Wooldoor Jebediah Sockbat that resembles Spongebob the most, and a Pikachu-like animal called Ling-Ling, which talks in gibberish, which is supposed to be Japanese, but clearly is not.
Unfortunately, the series quickly eroded into a rather raunchy affair in which vulgarity was presented as ‘humor’, and nowhere this is more apparent than in the series’ finale, its one and only feature film, which was only released on DVD in 2010.
Unlike other feature films based on adult animated series (‘South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut’ from 1999 and ‘The Simpsons Movie’ from 2007 come to mind), ‘The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!’ doesn’t do any attempt to become something bigger and more spectacular than the series. The movie retains an extremely vulgar and surprisingly dull atmosphere throughout the picture, mingled with some clearly bitter resentment, especially against fellow Comedy Central series South Park.
For example, during the film some other, more famous cartoon characters get killed, but without any attempt to draw laughs (it seemed the film makers could freely use the Warner Bros. catalogue, for their characters are particularly abundant). Even the best gag, in which the characters temporarily listen to commentary track to find out how to proceed, is milked so long that it becomes yet another annoying episode in one long series of vexations.
There are some nice touches (e.g. some of the characters visible in the Disney-like kingdom Clara visits), but the gratuitous splashes of obscenities and violence outnumber them by far. For example, the superman-like character Captain Leslie Hero drags a rotting female corpse with him throughout the picture and there’s even a random short scene in which all characters have sex with each other, without any clear reason, not even within a comical context. This long string of immaturities and the complete lack of anything that resembles humor means that this film could best be completely forgotten.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!’ is available on the DVD box set ‘Draw Together – The Complete Collection’
Director: John Eng
Stars: Duckman
Airing Date: May 28, 1994
Rating: ★★★★★
In what is arguably one of the most inspired Duckman episodes of all, Duckman is the unlikely star of a reality television show called ‘American Dicks’, a spoof on the television series Cops, which first appeared on television in 1989, and still runs.
In this episode Duckman suppossedly is followed by a cameraman with a hand-held camera, which leads to scenes with odd staging, distorted body parts, as Duckman and the others repeatedly talk into the camera, and even animated backgrounds, a rare feat since the early 1930s.
Moreover, the images are more often than not in constant motion, suggesting camera movements and even walking. This is done with such skill that the ‘documentary camera style’ is evoked very convincingly, despite the looney images within them.
This episode is one of the very few episodes in which Duckman veritably is a private detective, even if he turns out to be the worst and most oblivious one around, leaving it to Cornfed to solve the case.
What doesn’t help is that Aunt Bernice interferes with the program when she learns that the audience is predominantly male between the age of 20 and 55. Promptly, she advertises herself as wedding material. During the finale there are even severe closeups of her breasts and buttocks.
Even the kids get their moments in this episode, which is full of great gags, both in visually as in the soundtrack. A true classic.
Watch ‘American Dicks’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Duckman episode no. 11
To the previous Duckman episode: Cellar Beware
To the next Duckman episode: About Face
‘American Dicks’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Duckman – The Complete Series’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 