8/3/2019 TV Cartoons, 1995

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/tv-cartoons-1995 1/2

F U N N Y G O I N G O NL O O K A T C A R T O O N S O N P R I M E - T I M E

Y A N D R E W M I L N E R

tie-time cartoonshave finally comeof age.. Thirty-fiveyears ago, when

he Flintstones debuted,cared much that it

as practically an exactof The Honeymoon-

. It was enough that

ha d creat-human cartoon charac-(a TV first) and put

in half-hour situa-Later came T he Jet-essentially a copy of

he Flintstones updatedthe stone age to theage. Originality was

Today we've beenwith a new genera-

of animated sitcoms—

es with the p otentialevery bit as idiosyn-and biting as Larry

or M ad About Y o u ,

cartoon form.Here's a look at the cur-

crop of prime-time

The most recent isnew Dr.

Professional T h e ra -Boston-based comic

Katz plays the ti-daraner. a -Wish Ne w

stank whose twen-SOD Ben lives

wtale sort ot u .-fm d ajob (W here do

come op wife these"~ _" 7' ^~r̂ ' * • _ " _

The doc's'is made up of

including Dora ben,an d Larrt

During theirD r. Katz does Ihrie

toss ou t straight"W hat was your

like9"— as the

launch into theirwith a few ani-

visuals thrown in to

flesh out the monologues.There's a nice, low-key

aspect to Dr. Katz, one notfound in Comedy Central'stypical in-your-face pro-gramming. The dialoguesbetween Katz and Ben arereminiscent of AlbertBrooks or W oody Allen —no t quite as hilarious, butlike them, Katz is keenlyaware of the differences be-tween what people say andwhat they really mean. Therelationship between Katzan d his hostile receptionist(she to him: "Do you knowwhat it's like to deal withcrazy people all day?") isalso charming.

But... there's also astrong whiff of gimmickryto the proceedings. Themenagerie of Katz's pa-tients is largely made up ofthe B-grade stand-ups ofthe 1980s, uie ones whodidn't get a sitcom withtheir names in the title.They play themselves anddo nothing except theirbits; they don't interact at

al l with Katz in his person-al life. Roseanne onRoseanne is able to gen-uinely act and even dopathos; th e comics" hereglibly do the one-liners that

| youwill dimly recall fronTLeno, Letterman, and evenCarson. (A t least the showacknowledges this; duringthe final monologue, thebalding of a piano can beheard in the shrink's office,a b The Tonight Show."YTanow what that means,don't you?" Katz asks.

cm of time." Thejust sit stupidly

wide me dosing credits

come up.) And the much

ballyhooed computer ani-mation employed to pro-duce Dr. Kan is pretty

overrated. It doesn't look

much different from exist-ing cartoon technology,and isn't even used to fulleffect to illustrate the stand -up routines. During th ecomic shtick, Dr. Katzmight as well be live ac-tion.

Nonetheless I still ha veaffection for the show, hi itsportrayal of a put-uponpsychiatrist Dr. Katz ma ynot surpass The BobNewhar t Show or Frasier

in TV history, bu t it's good

duce The Simpsons , it wasdecidedly not in that sameleague. Jon Lovitz starredas the title character. JaySherman, a two-timePulitzer Prize-winning filmcritic hosting a cable Sneak

Previews- l ike show. Theclips of the films he re-viewed w ere the best thingabout this show (SpikeLee's Malcolm F, about th elate Mr. Forbes, and espe-cially Tim Burton's T h eNigh tmare before

Hanukkah , shot in stop-ac-tion animation).

But the rest of the gagswere strangely belaboredand needlessly spelled out.In one, Jay's sister com-plained that at the girls'school the only available

Unl-hmmmmmmm. Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

enough and smart enoughthat, doggone it, people jus tmight like it.

Dr . Katz joins three ex-isting cartoon series: Fox'sThe Critic (now, alas, can-celed), USA's Duckman(Saturdays, 10:30) an dFox's T he Simpsons (Sun-days, 8:00). As for those:

T he Critic debuted in1994 on ABC, was can-celed and then bought byFox earlier this year, wh ere

it was dumped again.W hile it was produced bytwo of the people who pro-

guy was Ed Koch (joke #1). A Koch caricature thenappeared in the window,asking, "How'm I doing?"(joke #2) "Get lost!" (#3)Koch slipped aw ay mutter-i n g , "I'm no t doing sogood!" (#4). That's threegags too many, and the firston e ain't so incisive itself.T he Critic would a lsomake a reference to a filmor TV show and assumethat this was the same as

making some sort of satiri-cal c omment about it.

Beyond that, there was

a blandness at the scenter. W orse, I coulder sense an individuaative voice behindCritic. W hen you The Twilight Zone ,aware of Rod Serling

when he's offscthrough the casting, talogue, th e pacing.Critic always seemedit were designed bymittee ("Let's p

Schwarzeneggerhere— everybody kSchwarzenegger!" "and let's do a Stallonthere— everyone'llit!")

Ultimately, the rThe Critic flopped mabe that critics don't lead terribly funnyThey watch somebodform, they write wh ether they liked it othey occasionally getthey wait for the nextto review. It's not an ing existence. Takword for it.

Duckman. Notthe early day s of Thesons has there beenco m this brilliant. Alexander plays theexcitable "pdick/family man" tryenjoy sex, cigarettebooze in the 1990sstaying one step ahethe feds whenever po("The FB I raided thatness I invested in...Y'I wish they'd publishkind of guideline: Tbabyselling, this ibabyselling!"). Hiskick is a pig named f e d , out of whose Jo

day-like delivery comistential philosophysecretaries, FluffyUranus, spout '90sgood rhetoric to thewhere even W illiamnett would gladly stthem, and Duckmanregularly toss them blender or send through th e shrDuckman' s a wiwhose harridan of ain-law, Bernice, helps

his kids, including aheaded child n

continued on p

8/3/2019 TV Cartoons, 1995

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/tv-cartoons-1995 2/2

LATE NIGHT JULY 17,199

1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30

KY W

Late NightA ( C C )

Jones & JuryOwnership ofa television.

Current Affair(CC) (CC)

Jerry Springer Leeza Scheduled: a rJscus- • NBC News atsion on the awkwand leer iSunrise (CC)years. A

News (CC)

Da

WPVI

News (R)

(CC)

AM Philadel-

phia: A Sec-on d Look (R )

Perspective:

Ne w Jersey

ABC World News Now (Joined in Process) f C C j AB C World

News ThisHorning (CC)

News (CC)

WCAU

Late LateShow (LivePhone-In) A

Cops A( C C )

CBS Up to the Minute (Joined in Progress) CBS MorningNews (CC)

|Strangers~

CBS MorNews(CC

WPHL Consumer Consumer * % "Policewoman Centertote' "arirtattr Head Clss. Amen A Valley Forum K . Copeland Tale Spin

WTXF Hawaii Five-0

"And Sod-

Paid Prog. I News (R) Black Forum T.J. Hooker Comm unity Paid Prog. This Is Day Bots Mas

Home Shopping Spree Home Shopping Spree Shepherd's ChapelRichard Bey IAll in Family *•* "Crosscountry" (1983) Rfehard Beyswsf, Dennis P. S. Powter Business News Profiles Scooby D

A& E Sherlock Holmes Mysteries Lovejoy Mysteries Law & Order Evening at the Improv (R) **-* "»y Favorite BnatUt" O947) Sob Hops.

AM C "Call Norihside 7TT ****"The SrapesofWrath"(1940Sffemy Fonda, *** :? Pirate" {1944)SoE Hope, j**̂"Vete of Bagdad"

CNN Call-Sports [Sports Larry King Live (R) (CC) Crossfire (R) Overnight O.J. Simpson T rial Hghlights Daybreak D a y

COMD Science Theater 3000 Sat Night Stand-Up Benny Hll Paid Prog. [Paid Prog, jPaid Prog. |Paid Prog. PadProg. Paid Prog

ESPN IndyCar Powerboats MtBlklng Sportscenter Up Close (Rj PGAGolf Anheuser-Busch Classic - Final Round. (R) Sportseenter, Sportsce

NICK Dragnet Superman Lucy Show F Troop M.T. Moore Taxi (Van Dyke [Bob Newhart Dragnet Teacher

SCPH Soccer Fish & Game On the Bench Boxing Prime Championship Series. (R) WTATour On Tour Nationa :,:«L=aCu*

TC M MGM Parade 'Affairs-Octtr

TNT ***• Our Gang Toe' Sta.

B US A Major Dad |CNet [Hollywood [Paid Prog. Paid Prog. [Paid Prog. [Paid Prog. [Paid Prog. Paid Prog. Bloomberg Bloomberg

National Geographic Exp lorer (R) ( C C ) Corner Pyle News To m & Jerry iScoofcy-O

Paid Prog. PadProg

sical v c x l c t War!' ' ; • : • • •

Talking Sex: Making Love inthe '90s (R) A (CC)

I Why AmGay?-Am:

AW^Point of Impact" (1 S

t t f e

Last Best Year" {1ST y t e r ktoge.

SHOWliiiiilpi Be Announced

- • '

Murder Most f* s "RussianRoateto"Horrid 1(1993) Susan Safety N

* * "Remote" (1993, Comedy. Chris CimJessica Sowma?,'. PG'

"Rhapsody Hi August" (1391,3ets.(SubtMeifi

from page 3

Mambo.In the series' debut weDuckman's arch-neme-

who escaped Duck-'s clutches y et again. A

Duckman wasto watching homeW e saw S t eamboat

footage of him

Popeye

nes of h im as a boy vain-trying to sy ;Olive Oyl ,B e a r shots of him as a

(as BooSimpsons-l ike

late wife (Marge).life neatly

cartoons.Dweezil Zappa pro-

son— he hasn'tth e concept of

the door before try-

ing to walk in— an dDweezil's dad Frank pro-vided most of Duckman ' smusic. I 'm not much of aFrank Zappa fan, bu t this,plus his testimony beforeTipper Gore's PMRC hear-ings in 1985, seems anappropriate enough legacy.

The writers on Duck-m a n count Moonl ight ingamong their credits. I sup-pose after making CybillShepherd and Bruce W illissound as sophisticated as

Hepburn and Tracy, gettinglaughs out of a cynicaldetective duck was a rela-tive snap. The quirky ani-mation is provided byGabor Csupo, who's alsobehind The S impsons . Ihave a hunch that Duckmanis our generation's Monty

Python. Twenty y ears fromno w they'l l be publishingscripts of the show and sell-ing Duckman videotapes orlaserdiscs or CD-ROMs or

whatever the hell new tech-nology comes along. You

ca n watch an y Duckman

episode a dozen times andstill find something new tolaugh at the 13th time— myhighest compliment.

The Simpsons just con-cluded its sixth season, andwhile I 'm as big a fan asever (I even have Simpsonspersonal checks) I noticed aslight decline in quality lastseason, from an A to maybea B+. I think Matt Green-ing, James Brooks and co.have started to run out of

original ideas for theirnuclear clan. Last seasonHomer became a part-timeKrusty the Klown imper-sonator... which was remi-niscent of the episode w henHomer became the mascotof the Springfield minorleague baseball team.Marge joined th e policeforce... just as B art spent thenight with th e Springfieldcops. Bart won a pet ele-phant who caused havoc...

much as Lisa's pony did afew years earlier. The city

of Springfield faced annihi-lation from a meteor... inmuch the same fashion theyfaced a nuclear meltdowntwo or three years ago.

Bu t when T he Simpsonsclicks, it's still brilliant andpunchy. The episode whereSideshow Bob was paroledan d then ran against MayorQuimby was a devastatingsend-up of the Americanpolitical process. W hereasT he Critic simply didinnocuous Rush-Lim-

baugh-is-fat jokes; T h eSimpsons presented a Lim-baugh caricature entertain-ing an audience of brain-dead listeners, bul ly inggovernment officials an dmasterminding the townRepublicans' attempt toelect Sideshow Bob. Andthe (presumably Democrat-ic) incumbent Quimby wasshown as an adulterousboozer w ith a familiar thickBoston accent. Thank God

they're just cartoons, eh?And the best Simpsons

episode last season was

ambitious fantasy set 2010, wherein a colle

age Lisa gets engaged to aristocratic Brit (playeda nearly unrecognizaMandy Patinkin) who caoff the wedding whenmeets the achingly protariat Simpsons clan. Nonly did this episode getsome sharp social jok

about th e future— asome hilarious predictio

fo r what will become of

! peripheral characters—j re-examined the relatio| ship between Lisa and

members of her famUnderneath the broad co

mentary, the episode wabout something. At considerable best. T

j Simpsons is still the fresh

TV around, and it does

just comment on oworld— it creates its ow