REVIEW: Bob & Doug cartoon (On Global TV)

So I watched what I assume is the series premier of the Bob & Doug cartoon. I had seen an article on it earlier in the day and thought, I'm not doing anything else, so what the hey. Reading the article I saw they replaced Bob McKenzie with Dave Coulier, of Full House fame. . Like Bob Saget, and John Stamos,I'm sure he's probably done something since Full House, but whatever it has been so far has not been enough brain bleach to scrub the association and replace it with something new. I mean, I suppose Rick Moranis is too busy making crappy country music or honey I shrunk my penis or whatever the hell he's up to now. BUT I digress. I was aware that Dave Coulier is a voice actor, he played Slimer on the real ghostbusters or some shit, so I looked up his voice acting and he was in Rude Dawg and the Dweebs, which I quite enjoyed during its limited air time on television. Alas it was before its time. Also dogs can't drive cars.

Of course, Then I realized, SHIT, It's on Global! When has Global produced a quality television show? NEVER. Maybe Traders, but who the hell watched that? Even though it was on every hour they needed to fill with canadian programming. But who knows, it's a new millenium, CanWest Global might have fluked on something entertaining for once.

Well guess what, they did! It was actually pretty good. It's no Futurama or Simpsons seasons 2-8, but it's definitely got potential. There were a few gags they had that made me actually laugh out loud, which is not an easy thing to do, if only because I've watched Futurama and Simpsons season 2-8 and have high standards. Dave Coulier actually pulled off a pretty good Bob McKenzie. and Dave Thomas was horrible. Why couldn't they find a qualified voice actor to replace him? Nah Just Kidding he was fine. Of course they made the character strangely pudgy. Even if Dave Thomas is morbidly obese today, isn't the whole point of animating it to have an idealised representation? But that's my only real quibble.

Also Maurice LaMarche was in it, and I've been a fan of Maurice LaMarche since before I knew who he was. And maybe they get a Canadian tax credit for putting him in it, so double plus cash prize bonus. Now, the main character he played was a teacher in a school where Bob and Doug seemed to have been sent to earn their diploma to work for the department of sanitation. Now I missed the first minute or two and didn't get the setup so immediately I was afraid they decided to make Bob and Doug teenagers and put it in a school setting, but thankfully it seems to be a one-off deal. The character Maurice LaMarche played was a teacher who had aspirations of cashing in on turning bob and doug, who he thought as gang members, into model students in the sole attempt to publish and capitalize on the subsequent movie and book deals for the story. Which I thought was a clever subversion of the genre, to be honest, and it went a long way to my enjoyment of this episode.

They also animated the old Great White North set, and didn't shy away from blood, beer, and, bitches. The holy triumverate of quality animation. Though I only added the "bitches" part to make it a triumverate, there weren't any bitches. Speaking of bitches, I also didn't see Bob and Doug's dog from the movie Strange Brew (Yeah the original dog is obviously dead by now, but I liked that dog) nor his parents (the father who was played by Mel Blanc in the movie), hopefully they find someone to do a good mel blanc voice if he's in the cartoon, and keep the conceit of never showing the fathers face. I quite liked that in the original Strange Brew movie, that you only saw the backside of his chair. But they do show the dog in the promo poster I added here. I forget the dogs name. I could search it on Google but whatever. Hosehead, yeah that sounds right.

You know, Global could've got extra money if they asked Molson or some beer company, Labbatts, or whoever, to do product placement. I wonder if the CRTC doesn't allow that. Maybe they did and I just didn't notice.

Now the show is obviously finding its legs in this first episode, but you know, if you look back to the first episode of any series, if its this good, subsequent episodes will be greatly improved. So I wish Global great success with this show, and will watch subsequent episodes to see how it goes, unless I forget. Which I probably will as they always end up moving shows from nights I originally watch them and then I just don't bother anymore.