Napoleon Dynamite Animated Series – Pilot TV Review
In a perfect world, I, a writer and general bearer of good news for this awesome little blog would be without a position. There would be no need for cynics, skeptics, and critics alike because the average person would not feel like they constantly have to check and see if those around them are as duplicitous as the characters in a Martin Scorsese film. Yes, there would be nothing that would limit the common man from achieving God –like status , Nietzsche ,Machiavelli and Hobbes would not be praised for their generally pessimistic worldviews ,and every show that comes on T.V. would be amazing and shine to its fullest potential (Community wouldn’t be in limbo but let’s save that for another article). What am I getting at, what has me examining the greatest of goods and referencing political philosophers in some far off Ivory tower? Well, a little film released in 2004 that went by the name of Napoleon Dynamite that’s what. Exaggeration maybe, but one has to admit Napoleon Dynamite is one of the greatest portrayals of post pubescent awkwardness this side of Revenge of the Nerds or any film Micheal Cera has done in the last 5 years. So, here we are 8 years later and without a sequel, nobody asked for one nor did it really matter if one was ever made, why, simply because sequels to cult classics never live up to the hype of the original film i.e. Clerks 2. At this point it was really a matter of letting sleeping dogs lie (see The Thing). However, somebody felt the need to try and recapture the essence of Napoleon Dynamite and the result could not be any further from the source material.
Episode one Thundercone finds our protagonist with a forehead full of chicken grease induced zits, so how does he combat the egregious pustules simple an over the counter cream called “Rack-U-Tane” which bears a striking resemblance to the hard to prescribe acne medication Accutane. Well, as you might expect the are side effects are both horrible and awesome and they include “ bad breath ,B.O, fits of unbridled rage and lust” and Napoleon impresses his Gym teacher with an amazing display of super human strength which leads us to the PPC an underground fight club and ultimately the Thundercone. Throw in an arbitrary side plot which sees kip attempting to Woo an aloof girl he meets online and you have the setup for another mediocre Fox cartoon. Episode two Scantronica Love is essentially a “matchmaker/what if” type of episode in that the Science teacher has a machine that places students with their ideal matches. So Napoleon is matched with a new Japanese student Deb is matched with Don and Pedro with Summer. And we follow each couple and see how they interact with one another in different comedic settings.
So, let’s start with the positives most of the original cast is still intact except for Starla and Don, but they were easily replicable so no worries there . The animation is fluid ,crisp, and captures the quirky spirit of the movie quite well. The voice actors do their best with the material provided and the plots are somewhat viable given the source material, now onto the negatives.**Warning rant mode had been initiated** My biggest problem with Napoleon Dynamite is this anybody who has seen the movie will understand that the spirit of the movie wasn’t in over the top set pieces ,if anything the movie’s humor was derived from the understatement of seemingly random events and how Napoleon and those around him reacted to them. There were long lingering and meandering shots of an American wasteland, and the denizens of a rural farming community trying to cope with the world around them changing but unable to remove themselves from a period of time somewhere between the 80’s and 90’s. In a sense the town reflects Napoleon in that both are in a stagnant yet transitional period .Napoleon wants to grow up but he still enjoys child-like things and even acts like a child so he and his brother Kip are caught in between childhood and adulthood and the movie is an attempt to capture their collective march into adulthood. In many ways the film tackles deep subject matter such as: transcending one’s station in life, pursuing happiness, and being true to one’s self. I am not saying it would be impossible to make a cartoon based on a movie with such heady subject matter because it’s not, the key is in execution. However, the writers really went about this the wrong way.
The humor in this cartoon is too similar to the other cartoon in the Fox Sunday Night line-up. There are cut away gags, pop cultural references, and humor in general that would not fit with the tone of the movie. People don’t seem to understand that just because it’s a cartoon doesn’t mean you have to take out every ounce of realism there is. The perfect model for Napoleon Dynamite would have been a show like King of the Hill which managed to be both realistic and remain hilarious and well paced. Speaking of pace the movie was slow; the cartoon is like a Jack Hammer after a few cans of red bull. Its joke after joke they have to slow it down a bit if the show is going to work, otherwise they can just give this show to Seth Macfarlane.
Honestly, I do not expect too much from this series it may last a season or two but after that I anticipate its replacement. What I will do you ask, just because I love you all and I hate myself, I will be optimistic and continue to tune in week in and week out to see if the show is headed in the right direction. There is some major fine tuning that need to be done if the show is going to reach its target audience, in truth the show is too clean to run on Fox’s line up so it’s going to have to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack or it is going to always play in the shadows of Dan Castellnetta and Seth Mafarlane. The jump from big screen to silver screen has been unforgiving and the show feels hollow and lacking in spirit. I could go all political on this show and say something about corporate fat cats ruined this, but those directly involved with the show made the movie so the blame finger is pointed firmly at Jared Hess. Instead of trying to capture the biggest possible audience try pleasing those who made the movie a success in the first place otherwise we will be stuck with another water flavored cartoon clone that doesn’t dare tread in unfamiliar territory lest it be ostracized like its title character.
Rating: 2/5 Raging Nerds
