Virtuosity
Sorry for the unannounced vacation last week. My computer was going through another bit of trouble, but everything seems to be sorted now. Hopefully. Over the new year’s break I plan to get everything back up and running.
Yesterday I watched “Superjail!“. I’ll say this much: the opening sequence is fantastic. The rest of the show, unfortunately, confirms a theory I have about American cartoons. Outside of the kiddie fare, there are only three animated television shows produced in the US: The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park. Everything else is just some variation on these three.
All American cartoons are comedies. Not just that, they are a very specific type of comedy. The shows center around a cast of wacky characters who tend to be self-centered and incompetent. There’s a mixture of childishness and “adult” humor, often juxtaposed for shock value. Pop culture references, especially to things the viewer may have enjoyed as a child, are made frequently. Random things happen because, hey, it’s a cartoon and it doesn’t need to make sense.
The Simpsons invented this basic formula back in the 80s. South Park took it and ramped up the shock value. Family Guy took it, sped things up, and transformed it from humor to a pavlovian reaction to the word “Thundercats”. These three shows are not so much primary colors as they are a constellation. Whichever broken metaphor you prefer, the fact remains that American cartoons don’t stray too far from the territory delimited by the big three.
Mind if I go all deconstructionist on you for a minute? It’s okay, I have an English degree. In certain ways this comedic genre is both a reaction to and a reinforcement of the idea that cartoons are just for kids. Note the prevalence of “shocking” “adult” humor (I use quotes because in practice the humor is rarely shocking or adult). It seems that there’s a drive to include such material because, without it, you’d be watching a cartoon for kids. A signifier (for instance, the word “balls”) is required to show that this cartoon is fit for adult consumption.
Back to Superjail!… the visuals are imaginative, but the scripting is strictly color-by-numbers. Every episode follows the exact same outline. The characters are stock archetypes. Both of these flaws could be forgiven if there were anything else in there to hold my interest, but as the series progressed it just got more repeditive and less interesting. The great show promised to me by the opening sequence was never delivered.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:47 am
I want to disagree with you re: Venture Brothers, but I’m willing to hear you out if you don’t mind describing where it fits in. I find it, however, insufficiently random to fall neatly into this constellation.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:29 am
I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions. This theory is likely a result of the American cartoons I have access to moreso than the totality of American animation.
Regarding Venture Brothers specifically, I haven’t seen enough episodes to say anything with authority, but it does seem to fit somewhere within this genre. It’s a comedy centering around a cast of wacky characters who are mostly incompetent (except for Brock). The series is a parody/homage to Johnny Quest, so there’s the pop culture/childhood memories bit. The “Saturday morning cartoon”-style characters are juxtaposed with scenes of graphic violence and sexuality (remember the time Brock got a henchman to give him a cavity search, crushed the henchman’s hand with his anus and used him as a weapon to beat up the other henchmen?). I think you’re right that this show isn’t as random as the others on my list; the Venture Brothers universe seems to have internal consistency. The same was true for early seasons of The Simpsons, so even that doesn’t move it entirely out of this constellation.
I guess I should also mention that I’m not saying this genre of cartoons is necessarily bad. There are some brilliant shows being made in this style. It’s just that 1) I’d like to see something new, and 2) repeating the same formula over and over is boring. It seemed as though Superjail! was trying to do something different but was being held back by this very limited notion of what a cartoon is supposed to be.
December 30th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Now that I better understand the formula you’re referring to, I can better appreciate what you mean.
You could always try watching something old. Exo Squad is on Hulu.