Another show from Fox/Bento Box premieres Sunday ...
There's some fresh blood joining Fox's (in)famous Animation Domination line-up this Sunday with the premiere episode of Allen Gregory. For those unaware, Allen Gregory is a new half-hour animated comedy from Jonah Hill, Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogul about the world's most pretentious seven year old who's forced out of his sheltered, ritzy, home-schooled lifestyle and into the treacherous world of the public school system.
Right now, BB artists are waiting on a third season pickup for Bob's Burgers, and the first week's numbers on Allen Gregory. As one said to me today:
"You're always hanging by a thread in the animation business, waiting to find out if your show gets a new order of episodes. Nerve wracking. ..."
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11 comments:
4 weeks on air, tops.
He's like a less appealing stewie. Wheres the funny?
Come on folks! Union members made this show..not counting the subcontractors overseas. How about some support for the folks this show employs in Hollywood?
I have to agree with the first poster here, why would anyone want to listen to a character like this for 30 mins? I like Fox shows, but I have to pass on this guy.
Maybe if they made better shows, they would take longer to make, with better pay, the artists would be a little less stressed.
Better shows = better ratings.
If I would be working on this show I'd be stressed for my job.
If Jonah Hill wasn't attached this wouldn't have gotten made. Too Highbrow for Fox, I think people are too used to watching 30 minute shows with over the top situations and oddball cheap shot cultural references every few seconds...
This might work as a 15 minute short series on Adult Swim, but even the 2 minute trailer for this is dry...
As someone else said above, a not so funny version of Stewie..
For the sake of the union artists, I hope it succeeds, but this looks like yet another cartoon created by writers/comedians. NONE of these have ever succeeded, and most never even aired all their produced episodes.
If Jonah Hill had thought to team up with a talented cartoonist from the start, and develop this so that the characters AND the look were something worthy of animation, it could be a breakout hit. Instead, it just looks like an illustrated stand-up routine.
To previous Anonymous: With all due respect, I think cartoons mostly rise and fall based on the writing. South Park is made of paper cutouts, after all, but the writing elevates it. James L. Brooks and Sam Simon are the reason The Simpsons was great, not so much because that Marge's hair was blue or that Homer was yellow. (And, of course, the perfectly-pitched comic timing, which was spearheaded by those two as well). "Allen Gregory" smells like ass because the writing is bad, not because writers are bad, or anathema to animation.
Yeah I agree with above. The union artists did their job extremely well. The show looks slick and designs look really appealing. Its just hard to see that there was a demand for this show to begin with. The cast looks like they're all super-funny! How come when they're interviewed for the show they seem zapped of all energy and just repeat the same thing "he's the world most pretentious kid!" I'm hoping it turns out better than it looks.
To previous Anonymous: With all due respect, I think cartoons mostly rise and fall based on the writing.
The history of what has succeeded, and what has failed, demonstrates that shows which were hatched by writers and/or comedians, without the benefit of cartoonists being involved until later, proves you wrong. This is not a criticism of writers, or a claim that 'writers are bad.' I love and respect good writing. That's not my point.
The Simpsons were incredibly inventive in their graphics and design, especially in the early days. It reeked of having been created by a cartoonist, and was a joy to watch, even with the very inconsistent writing of the early episodes.
"Allen Gregory" looks like yet another 'cartoon' that was created with little regard for how it would look and move. I'm willing to bet that the bible was created, and scripts were written, before character designers and board artists were engaged. I'm also willing to bet that it was people with no artistic or cartooning experience who were the judges of what designs would be used, and how the characters should move. That's stupid, not because writers are bad, but because writers are in charge of something that they don't begin to understand well enough.
Yes, we artists can come in and make any stale shit look 'slick,' and yes, good writing is crucial to long term success for most TV shows. I'm not insulting anybody here, just saying that this looks like yet another misconceived animated series, like a dozen others I could name that died quick, unnoticed deaths.
Well said. And I'm the one who responded to you in the first place. Now, let's solve this whole Israel-Palestine thing...
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