"Brickleberry" tries to be shocking, but comes off as a copycat.
About.com Rating
Brickleberry is an animated series revolving around a group of dysfunctional forest rangers at a national park that is facing closure until a new ranger comes in to whip everyone into shape and save the park. Comedy Central has placed a 10-episode order Brickleberry is set to premiere September 25, 2012.
The pilot for Brickleberry was edited after Daniel Tosh created a brouhaha. Tosh was performing a stand-up routine that included too many jokes about rape for a female patron.
When she made her feelings known to him, he proceeded to make rape jokes at her expense. After Tosh experienced a media backlash, Comedy Central edited the pilot, which had several jokes about rape. All this went down just before Comic-Con, which Daniel Tosh did not attend.
Review
Daniel Tosh is the most famous person attached to Brickleberry, with comedians Waco O'Guin and Roger Black also writing and executive producing. If you have seen the comedy stylings of any of these men, you will know exactly what to expect in Brickleberry. I, however, still hoped I would be surprised to find that the cartoon was clever, funny and kept my interest. No such luck.
Brickleberry is a lazy cartoon, in all aspects. Firstly, the style of animation is taken almost directly from Family Guy, with a similar color palette and character style. (There's even a joke about Steve's huge head. Peter Griffin, anyone?) Gory jokes with blood and guns are thrown in for "fun," too.
Plus, the jokes rely almost solely on racist stereotypes, without a twist or new take on any of the punchlines.
None of the writers tried to think beyond the obvious offensive jokes: The black man doesn't like the woods; the masculine female ranger stalks the hot new one; the Hispanic man is trimming the hedges. But no one group of people can be offended because everyone is targeted, including women, blacks, lesbians and rednecks.
Brickleberry offers nothing original or new, including the been-there talking animal who has a potty mouth. And remember in The Simpsons when Homer put way too much lighter fluid on the grill in "Lisa the Vegetarian?" Yeah, Brickleberry does that, too, but falls flat.
This summer, Daniel Tosh fell in hot water after antagonizing a woman at a stand-up show about being raped. The B story in this episode is about the little bear Malloy being raped. And how it's not a big deal. And how no one cares. Funny stuff, huh?
I'm not a prude; South Park is one of my favorite cartoons. Shock jokes can be funny, but shock jokes are funny when they're clever or turned upside down, or taken a step further, like on South Park. Seems like the same executives from Brickleberry who love the horrible ad campaigns for the park are the same executives who gave this cartoon the greenlight.
Brickleberry's Denzel pretty much sums up my feeling about the show, "If you weren't so dumb, I might be offended."
Characters
The Brickleberry National Park rangers have varied personalities and dysfunctions: Over-zealous Steve leads the crew; hottie newcomer Ethel has skills to overshadow Steve; Woody is the veteran whose ideas are better in theory than reality; Denzel, an African-American, attempts to feel comfortable in the woods; Connie is the manly woman whose sexuality is being scrutinized; and Malloy is the trash-talking little grizzly bear.
Creators
Brickleberry will be executive produced by Daniel Tosh (Tosh.0) along with comedians Waco O'Guin and Roger Black, who wrote and created the series. The series is created, written and executive produced by O'Guin and Black (MTV2's Stankervision) and executive produced by Tosh, who will also voice a character.
Comedians O'Guin and Black's comedy careers began in college when they created the underground sketch comedy show, The DAMN! Show, later picked up by MTV and repackaged as Stankervision which aired on MTV2 in 2005. The inspiration for Brickleberry was O'Guin's father-in-law who is a former park ranger.