Posted Nov 26th 2009 5:08PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Sports, Late Night, 24, Lost, Animation, Music and Variety, Adult Swim, Festivus, Damages, Reality-Free
Another year, another Thanksgiving, and another Fall TV season with plenty of reasons to be thankful. Here's what's winning me over this holiday season...
FX's Sons of Anarchy -- Talk about a complete 180°. This show went from near the bottom of my list last season to one of the most superb dramas on TV right now. Midway through last year's up and down freshman season,
I argued that that show had more to offer at a second glance, but for the most part, Kurt Sutter and his team were still finding their footing. Well, they found their footing and then some this year. Season two has been expertly plotted and executed this season and this past week's
penultimate episode put the pieces in motion for a season finale that no TV fan should plan on missing.
Continue reading What Jonathan is thankful for
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 3:03PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, Animation, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
This is the age of personalized entertainment on demand. It's also the age of talking wads of meat and animated fart jokes. Finally, all of that can now come together on your home DVD player.
Adult Swim fans can now go online and create a disc full of their favorite episodes from the channel's top shows with the
Build Your Custom DVD tool.
For $20, you get 110 minutes worth of space to build a DVD. You can choose any of the available episodes from such series as
Venture Brothers (right),
Aqua Teen Hunger Force and
Sealab 2021. After arranging them in your preferred order, you give your DVD a name, description and cover art before paying for it and burning your unique creation.
Continue reading Adult Swim lets you build your own DVD online
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 1:46PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Animation, Adult Swim, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E06) This episode was a rare star-studded treat for
Venture Bros. Really honing in on the idea of adult aftermath in the lives of boy adventurer types, Jackson Publick introduced a robot boy, boy detective brothers (Seth Green and John Hodgman), former Wonder Boy (Patton Oswalt) and the return of Action Johnny (Brendon Small). Never before have so many guest voices (okay, four) been crammed into an installment, bringing the entire audience to an immediate nerdgasm.
Continue reading Review: The Venture Bros. - Self-Medication
Posted Nov 19th 2009 12:53PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Animation, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
With the holidays fast approaching, it's good to know that Adult Swim is thinking of you. According to their online schedule,
Aqua Teen Hunger Force will return on December 13th at 11:45 p.m. ET with an episode elusively referred to as "ATHF Xmas."
In true Adult Swim fashion, there's been absolutely no indication as to what this episode might be about, however it's likely that it somehow ties into the recently released
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Christmas CD,
Have Yourself a Meaty Little Christmas. If you haven't bought it yet, do yourself a favor and get it now. Trust me when I say that you haven't lived until you've heard Meatwad croon his own version of "Silent Night" or Carl cackle his way through "I'll Be Home for Christmas."
Anyway, regarding the episode, it's the only one listed on the schedule, so it's probably not the new season premiere, but it'll hopefully have some sort of performance aspect with songs from the album. That and maybe The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future will show up.
Please let the robot turkey be there.
Posted Nov 16th 2009 12:41PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Animation, Adult Swim, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E05) This episode was certainly a surprise in many respects. It was one of the funnier installments of the season so far. It also brought back a lot of old themes and cleared up some incomplete storylines that had started to gather dust. On one hand, I'm glad that those have been resolved, because most of them were revealed to be kind of irrelevant anyway, but I also felt as though it was rushed, like, five loose ends from old major arcs had to be hastily tied up in twenty-some minutes. Well, it's better than continuing to string us along, right?
Continue reading Review: The Venture Bros. - The Revenge Society
Posted Nov 15th 2009 10:30AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, TV on DVD, Animation, Adult Swim, Children, Reality-Free
Director Stephen Sommers might want to discourage the production of animated lead-ups to his feature films. They keep outdoing the movies they're supposed to set up for audiences.
Before his
Van Helsing reached theaters in 2004, Universal released
Van Helsing: The London Assigment. Written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the animated half-hour was clever and action-packed.
Van Helsing? It was
not clever and action-packed.
Now, the DVD release of
G.i. Joe: Resolute, an 11-episode series of animated shorts that originally aired on Adult Swim before the release of
Rise of Cobra, brings a cooler and more visually compelling "Yo, Joe!" to screens.
Continue reading TV's G.I. Resolute outduels big-screen Rise of Cobra
Posted Nov 10th 2009 10:00AM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
On an Adult Swim schedule where every show is strange in some way,
Xavier may be the strangest of the bunch. The title character is a hairy birdman with a beak and legs with knees that bend the wrong way. And a snake hand. And a loincloth. And two different colored eyes. And six nipples (I could go on, but...) He talks like a surfer dude, mashing up new age double talk with double entendre, inhabiting a sort of alternate, SIMS-like earth and killing or damaging irreparably all he seeks to help.
The effect of this only intensifies when you watch a lot of episodes of Xavier in one sitting, which is what you can do with the new X
avier: Renegade Angel Seasons 1 and 2 DVD. In its usual dose of fifteen minutes per episode, it's odd. Watch it for two hours, you start to see spots. Even the animation, which stresses the bright colors and blocky movement of computer generated graphics, pushes you off kilter. It's an overused description to say something looks like a cartoon on acid, but if ever a show actually deserved the description, it's
Xavier.Continue reading Review: Xavier Renegade Angel Seasons 1 and 2
Posted Nov 9th 2009 12:40PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Adult Swim, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E04) It's enough to make you stop believing when tears come fast and furious, in a
town called Malice. Yeah. I totally just made that up. Right now. Free words of wisdom, from me to you.
This episode wasn't spectacular for the purposes of laughing-out-loud. It was funny in a few moments, yes, but I spent most of the twenty-some minutes resting my chin on my fist, brow furrowed with concern. All the characters are going through some heavy stuff right now, and that inner turmoil, dealing with loss and identity and love, came bubbling to the surface in this episode. Doing so, again, isn't much of a gut-buster, but it makes for beautiful character development. Can you tell I have faith in this show? Maybe a little too much.
Continue reading Review: The Venture Bros. - Return to Malice
Posted Nov 5th 2009 10:02AM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: TV on DVD, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
The new
Adult Swim In A Box is an embarrassment of riches - six boxed sets for six different shows and a bonus disc featuring five unreleased pilots -- more than 20 hours on 12 DVDs. I was especially happy to get season two of
Sealab 2021, which I have never been able to catch regularly, and season one of
Metalocalypse, which I have always enjoyed.
Getting season two of
Robot Chicken, volume one of
Moral Orel, volume two of
Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and volume three of
Space Ghost Coast to Coast just seemed like a bonus. Well worth the suggested retail price of $69.98 for Adult Swim fans who haven't already purchased any of the included sets.
The pilots are a mixed bag, but mostly good.
The Best of Totally for Teens is a live action parody of a moralistic teen variety show hosted by thirtysomethings trying to be hip. It's a promising premise, one that should maybe be revisited, but the pilot is a bit of a mess. It hits topics ripe for satire in the format like teen insecurity, drugs, and sex, and has the right look for Adult Swim.
Continue reading Review: Adult Swim in a Box
Posted Nov 2nd 2009 8:35AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Adult Swim, Episode Reviews
(S04E03) I swear to you, dear reader, that I do my best to stay somewhat objective when reviewing
The Venture Bros. It's tough, though, when the writers keep knocking them out of the park like this. We're only a few episodes in, but I'm already enjoying things more than I did with season three, and it's not just because this episode had mind-blowing prog rock and UPS guys with the Shining.
Continue reading Review: The Venture Bros. - Perchance to Dean
Posted Oct 26th 2009 12:08PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Adult Swim, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E02) First things first. If you are not a connoisseur of '90s superhero cartoons or a huge nerd that has been closely following
Venture Bros. news all the way through production, you may have missed out on the full "Handsome Ransom" experience. That is not to say the unaware couldn't have a good time, but things were made ten times funnier if a viewer knew that the not-so-pure Captain Sunshine was voiced by Kevin Conroy, aka Batman.
Continue reading Review: The Venture Bros. - Handsome Ransom
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 9:32AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Web, Adult Swim, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Two very unique comedies will get a time slot on an equally unique cable network.
Conan O'Brien's "Conaco" production company and actor Rob Corrdry both scored spots on Adult Swim for two new live-action sitcoms.
O'Brien's company won a spot for Eagleheart, a show about a fading TV star who wins a chance for glory once more on a production in Texas, but constantly clashes with the low-level TV exec in charge of the show.
Corrdry's medical drama spoof web series
Childrens' Hospital will also go to Adult Swim. The channel will show re-edited versions of the episodes that aired on TheWB.com as well as produce new ones. Corrdry originally pitched the show to
Comedy Central, but negotiations broke down with the network, probably because the show didn't have enough bimbo strippers and shirtless fat guys to fill their quota (cough,
Secret Girlfriend, cough).
Posted Sep 16th 2009 4:25PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Video, Animation, Adult Swim, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
When FX initially picked up six episodes of its first foray into animated comedy, the plan for Archer was to pair it with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Since that greenlight, two things happened.
First, FX got trigger-happy and greenlit a whole bunch of other shows (from the likes of Louis CK and Don Cheadle). Second, and more importantly, according to FX it turns out that from start through post, it takes almost a whole month to complete one episode of Archer. With Always Sunny premiering this Thursday night at 10PM ET on FX, slotting in Archer's six eps suddenly became impossible. So the plan has changed. Instead of pairing Archer with Sunny mid-season, FX plans to launch its fantasy-football themed sitcom The League instead. However, if you were looking forward to seeing Archer, I've got some good news.
Continue reading FX quietly plans sneak-peek of animated Archer
Posted Sep 13th 2009 11:03AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, Animation, Adult Swim
In case you have not heard already, the fourth season of
Venture Bros. arrives on [adult swim] at midnight on October 18 (meaning the night of the 18th, technically the morning of the 19th). Mark your calendars.
This news has already been floating around for a while, thanks to sites like the
Mantis-Eye Experiment, but things have been confirmed by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer during their panel at DragonCon. Some footage of this has finally been released by AdultSwim.com, so you can stop crawling around YouTube for people's crappy cell phone recordings.
Continue reading Venture Bros. premieres October 18
Posted Aug 26th 2009 5:04PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
Season four of
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! has been over for months, and "Season Cinco," as season five has been dubbed on
the pair's Web site, has not yet started. But fans can bide their time with the
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! S3ASON THR33, which was out earlier this month.
In season three, Tim and Eric took a step up. The shows got funnier and tighter, without losing any of the scattershot, what-the-hell-am-I-looking-at feel. They upped the ante on creepy and uncomfortable with the "Child Showcase" sketch, featuring Patton Oswalt and Rainn Wilson as children singing inappropriate songs while an approving host looks on. It's an immediately unsettling image (though nothing really tops Chippy for that so far), a seamless special effect that puts Oswalt's and Wilson's heads on a kid's body.
Continue reading Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! S3ASON THR33 on DVD
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