Saturday 18 January 2014

Nothing In Particular Against Slapstick Or (Animated) Morons

I should clarify, I'm hoping Uncle Grandpa doesn't just become "the slapstick adventures of morons show" because the entire premise is philosophically interesting, and can be taken to the far edge of surreal. I don't have any objection to slapstick or morons in particular in animation. Besides, having caught up, I can say with confidence there's no cartoon currently in production that can hope to compete with The Amazing World of Gumball for creative cartoon violence. 
Gumball seems conceived from the ground up for physical comedy - including the inspired design choice of making the characters only semi-humanoid at most. Regular Show proudly depicts onscreen death of humans, firearms that actually on occasion shoot bullets and face-punching, but it's an Adult Swim show in everything except branding and excessive use of the word 'dick'. Gumball, (which I can admit is) an actual kids' show, is just as violent on a smaller scale - focusing mainly on classic cartoon "bounceback" trauma and municipal-level property damage. The absence of realistic weapons (although being whacked with a cactus, hit by a car, or strained through a chain link fence would be sufficiently effective against living tissue) and the fact that Gumball generally doesn't include permanent death present a different tone of violence, but it can more than compete on quantity.
The average Gumball episode, if not driven by physical and psychological trauma, is at least accented with it. In the spirit of Batman: The Animated Series' escalatingly gruesome ends for the inanimate Scarface puppet, the food-based characters (conveniently the lack-wittingest of the cast) can be splattered especially brutally, and everything stays E-for-Everyone no matter how much obvious agony they're in or how much starchy viscera are spilled* .
It took me way longer to appreciate this show than it should have - the McFarlane-like lead structure did not make for a good first impression. On further watching, though, it's only truly similar by way of common ancestors. The actual family dynamic of the Wattersons proves to be more like the early Simpsons or even The Flintstones - they'll pull a petty scam on one another in a second, but they show genuine remorse at hurting a loved one, and will go to war for each other when the chips are down. The fact that it basically has three plots keeps Gumball from reaching the same tier as Adventure Time and Regular Show - but along with Uncle Grandpa and the much appreciated shortage of new live-action programming, it's at the center of a mini-renaissance on the Cartoon Network.

* The infamous scene with Banana Joe at the weight bench passed the wince test with an official non-fan, though - one who's been subjected to "House Fancy" and "Fungus Among Us", no less.

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