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At a glance, I was first turned away from this show by the mere fact that it was produced using entirely puppets. In earnest, I have not watched a puppet show since "The Muppet Show" and "Sesame Street" back when I was a kid in the mid 80s. It seems in the modern day that the entertainment scene has tended to shy away from using this medium with the advent of more advanced methods of creating cleaner and more visually impressive cartoons (than was possible 20 years ago) and 3D animation imagery via modern computers. As such, not many are willing to put the effort into creating a show that uses puppets anymore.
As my younger relatives came to visit more often, I found myself glancing at the television screen more and more. After a short while, I realized that the attention to detail in this show was unparalleled when compared to puppet shows of the past. (And some ones from recent memory who's names escape me.) The last show (movie in fact) that caught my eye using puppets with this level of detail was "The Dark Crystal." That aside... when I was in college I worked in fast food on the side and found I could relate to some of the situations that the main characters find themselves in. A pushy loudmouth (and in this case evil) boss, irate and stupid customers, and mechanical mishaps just to name a few.
Parker steals the show with his cliché nerd fetishes (and some not so common one's as well) such as his obsession with fantasy games (like Dungeons and Dragons) and things like "Star Trek." I find myself laughing at the pure outlandish nerdyness of his actions on more than one occasion. His nerdyness is only paralleled by his good nature. Whenever Josh gets into a scrape, Parker is usually quick to bail his buddy out of trouble.
Josh is the typical "cool guy." Or... at least as cool as a guy that works in fast food can be. He is selfish and self serving... but not without conscience. When he does something nasty or wrong, he usually comes clean before all is said and done.
There is also a whole array of parody characters from the Vegetarian Hippie at the Vgen Fast food place, to the mindless security guard and even the frequent mall crawlers like the loud mouth kids (tater tots) and brainless pretty girls without 2 brain cells to rub together.
In conclusion... the visual effects are outstanding (for puppets), the story lines are well developed and witty, and as a whole the show is very entertaining. It's also good to see a fresh new show that utilizes puppets, as this form of entertainment is rapidly becoming a lost art. (They even removed the creatures in the original "Star Wars" with 3D computer generated replacements! A large insult to Jim Henson's creature shop I'm sure.) And when I have the younger relatives over for family functions, this is one of the few shows that we can all agree on to watch together. As such, I give it two thumbs up and hope to see more episodes developed in the near future.
score 10/10
sherbf00 19 November 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1766642/ |
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10-11-2020 01:57:04