I think a lot of fans will agree with me that this reboot is missing a lot of what we liked about the original: the dynamics of an ensemble cast and the chance to try different character dynamics and pairings. The humor can be hit or miss at times, but pretty enjoyable once they get past the "fish-out-of-water" jokes and the needless Trump-bashing. C'mon, equal time, guys; turn in something making fun of the left's foibles, how'bouddit? I've got one here about
college safe spaces they're welcome to use.
Sadly, they pretty much axed all the ancillary characters-- though I will say, many of them got surprise cameos in ep. 5. Trust me, you'll have to see it to believe it. Fair warning: you'll cringe a bit at first, but stay with it, because the payoff is
quite satisfying. Callbacks, too, to a number of classic shorts like "Hercule Yakko", "Meet John Brain", and "The Scoring Session", abound, and are fun to spot. And, for my fellow PSF'ers [singsongy] a couple of sneezes, too-oo! Some of the references and parodies can easily go over the heads of those who lived under ObamaCable and weren't allowed much more than the classic television networks, mawkish 'tween dramas on the CW, and the news feeds dubbed in Spanish for the the better part of the twenty-tweens... but I did like their take on
It, and Pinky and Brain in a
Terminator parody even better than the one from their short-lived spin-off comic in the late nineties.
The actors, of course, are almost three decades older, but most seem to be still in good voice... though, anyone else think Maurice LaMarche's tired, word-weary delivery is rather less Orson Welles and more Vincent Price? Tress MacNeille's singing voice lends a sultry, smoky edge to in Dot's numbers I rather like, though. Oh, and Kevin Michael Richardson as a talking, singing zit (I am struggling not to make an ethnically-insensitive joke about a "blackhead"--
shit.
A few of the episodes' third acts seem to be throwing stuff to the wall and seeing if it sticks. A couple of these new segments debuted that would have been right at home for sure in
Freakazoid, or even
Toonsylvania, Spielberg's lesser-known brainchild. One, "Starbox and Cindy", about a small child and a tiny alien warlord that appears to be what
Pinky , Elmyra and The Brain wanted to be, but never quite could pull off.... and another's about a man who is accidentally exposed to a radioactive explosion and, er, turned into a strange gnome who lives in people's mouths--yes, it's as weird as it sounds; I think it's supposed to be a...um... a parody of the old
Incredible Hulk series, I think. Just... I-I don't know, watch the ending and tell me, listening to the music, if this doesn't come to mind....
In short, I liked more than I hated, and though a couple shorts don't quite stick the landing the way I'd have liked, and I could have lived without seeing Pinky's naked butt, there's more good than bad here... and if they're really itching for new characters, I say
introduce more dogs. Ya can't go wrong with dogs.
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