In case you haven’t heard about this new Fox show…well, you haven’t been on Kongregate, which ran two promotions for this into the damn ground for at least several weeks. The premise is that Zorn is a cartoon barbarian living in the cartoon land of Zephyria, whose appearance is loosely based on He-Man, who had a son with his now-former girlfriend Edie, who lives on Orange County. For whatever reason, he starts missing his son and decides that he has to move to Orange County in order to be a better father. And since Edie is now engaged to someone else, Zorn also has to learn to live on his own, which means finding his own place, holding down a job, figuring out bus schedules, you get the picture. And yes, he’s a cartoon character living in “the real world” (which the show handles surprisingly seamlessly). You can watch the episodes online here.
Okay, I’ll get right to the point. The first episode left me unimpressed. The second episode gave me a headache. And the third episode made he despise anyone who had anything to do with this raging debacle. The problem is very simple: There is not one even remotely likable character. ANYWHERE. Zorn is a one-note flaming colossal jerk whose schtick is that he blabs and blabs and blabs and never accomplishes a damn thing. Alangulon is a walking punching bag with the emotional range of a cinderblock. Edie is the same out-of-touch know-nothing irritating nagging harpy we’ve all seen like ten billion times before. Craig is a ridiculous hodgepodge of “quirky” traits that doesn’t come within a par 5 of a recognizable human being. The boss is a tedious right-wing strawman who, of course, never stands of up to Zorn (despite seeing ample evidence that he’s all talk) because, well, I think “shut up” works here. Oh, and the latest episode introduced a big bully who’s allowed to torment and assault Alangulon with utter impunity, which is both highly realistic and screamingly funny in 2016, and a gym coach-shaped Random Dialogue Generator.
Of this show’s many, many, maaaaaany problems, my hugest one is Zorn. I’ve never seen a leading man who’s so utterly disgusting and has literally no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I’m aware that this type of character has been a hallmark of comedies for a long time now, and it can work if…very important now…he occasionally has to face the consequences. (Duckman was a perfect example.) Zorn throws around insults, shows no respect for anyone’s property, repeatedly insults and defies his boss, goes on and on about the life he left behind, never makes the slightest effort to adjust to his new world (after everything my parents accomplished from the first moment they arrived here from China, I have absolutely zero respect for anyone who has that attitude), and is basically completely useless to anybody…and no one ever does anything about it. The show doesn’t even bother to BS up a reason, it’s just, oh, hey, there’s this big muscular doof with a sword, better let him do whatever he wants!
So what exactly an I concerned about?
Well, the fact that the main character is a royal douchebag and no one else is watchable and…no one seems to want to say this. Actually, I’m having trouble finding any discussion at all. (The random blurbage on IMDB is “discussion” in the same sense that throwing a rock at a wall ever few minutes is “sculpting”.) Which is eerily similar to what happened with Beavis and Butthead. Remember? I pleaded, over and over, one simple message: “This show is disgusting! You can see that, right?” And the only voices that were not filled with glowing praise were the ones spewing that tripe about making kids set fire to their brothers or whatever stupid crap.
But I’m not worried about it turning into Beavis and Butthead, which, as it turns out was pretty much harmless. (After all the arglebargle about the brilliant satire, the only thing that survived was “Huh huh huh huh, you said ______.”, and let’s face it, there really aren’t that many opportunities for that one.) I’m worried about it turning into South Park. You know, the show that started out with a lot of shock value (this, you’ll remember, was what convinced Matt and Mike Chapman to never use any swear words in Homestarrunner.com) but had some good writing and some really funny episodes, then turned Eric Cartman into the invincible god-king jerk and pretty much sent everything down the toilet. The thing was, the show had a fairly strong following before that, but there was still plenty of honest criticism (the infamous Terrence and Philip fakeout was a great example). After it became the Eric Cartman Show, all the talk was 100% glowing raves all the time. Not only that, these fans would viciously pounce on even the slightest criticism, to the point where every bit of dissent just gave up even trying. South Park is effectively immortal now, and if Matt and Trey Parker ever decide to end it, it will be completely on their own terms, all other powers in the universe being utterly powerless to stop them.
If Son of Zorn becomes a hit (admittedly a pretty big longshot, but you never know), the message will be clear: If you embrace total, unrepentant, irredeemable, unironic (whatever that means) jerkishness, your show is invincible. Let the critics wail, let the press stew in outrage. You will never be cancelled, you will never be banned, your ratings will never suffer, you can run whatever nonsense you want and it will not end until YOU say it ends.
Yeah, I’m overthinking this, I know. It’s just that, well, this just flipped all the right switches for some reason, and it bugs me a lot more than, say, King of the Hill ever did.
What do you think? (Other than I probably should’ve given up on Burrito Bison Launcha Libre a lot sooner? )
For the record, it’s currently 57 on Metacritic. Yeah, my cable provider is real big on this Metacritic thing for some reason.