| Monday, October 3, 2005 |
15:09 - Fool's Golden Age
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On the plus side, as announced in GIANT SCREEN-FILLING LETTERS in all the bumps for the past week, Adult Swim has gained an extra hour on Sundays, beginning at 10:00 PM instead of 11:00, apparently in deference to the monstrous crowds of viewers swelling its coffers with unstaunchable DVD sales.
But don't let's get too fired up now, hear. What goes in that extra leadoff hour? Futurama? Space Ghost? Home Movies? Venture Brothers? No. Of course not. Haven't you been paying attention? The answer's obvious: American Dad and another half-hour of Family Guy.
Seth McFarlane is the new David Feiss: an animator/voice actor/director/storyboarder/Shaolin Master Who Must Be Obeyed In All Things whose talent points are all spent in self-promotion. Never mind that the art lacks grace and/or nuance and the humor he peddles is worn for shock value and the voices he provides are harsh and grating and the comic timing has all the ingenuity of the drunk guy at the party dancing on the sofa with the lampshade on his head while everyone else sidles huntedly for the door, wailing kids in tow. He's money in the bank, man, so buy that man his own studio.
Both these guys are trying to be Mike Judge or John Kricfalusi, which is something all the industry's random rag-tag up-and-coming jacks-of-all-trades have been trying to accomplish for fifteen years now, each one muttering his own superstitious incantations and affecting his own version of a can't-miss nasally laugh or protruding butt joke. I don't think it's going to work. In order to be Mike Judge you can't try so hard—it has to come naturally. (Besides, the "I can't draw straight lines or symmetrical human beings" art style only works exactly once.) And in order to be John K., you have to be John K. No David Feisses allowed.
I have yet to decide whether Adult Swim is falling all over itself to hang on to the careening Seth McFarlane bandwagon just because it's the in thing to do in Hollywood these days, or if it's because the bumpmasters actually, honestly think he's a genius. I know they find themselves promoting crap they lie through their teeth about finding funny, like Twelve Ounce Mouse. But I also know they slavishly and obsessively bend to the whims of the people in the forums, so how do I know who to blame for this? Maybe I don't know my demographic as well as I thought I did, which I never thought was a lot.
Oh, but take heart. Saturday nights at 5:00 AM, it's the SUPER MILK CHAN POWER HOUR, with reruns of Cartoon Planet! See? I knew someone in the Turner Tower still had that old-time religion.
And apparently this, alleged not to be a joke, is coming to Cartoon Network as well. Uh... yay! I think! ... (Huh?)
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Brian Tiemann
