I usually plan these retrospectives out in advance, I even have a list on my computer for a bunch of retrospectives that I plan on doing in the future. A few weeks ago, however, I bought every episode of Drawn Together on DVD, as well as the movie on blu-ray. My original intention in watching/re-watching the entire series was just to watch it again, I hadn't watched the show in years despite being a fan, and there a small handful of episodes I had never seen before period. I guess I'm just getting to the point in my life where my leisure time melds together with my professional work time.
So f#ck it let's talk about Drawn Together.
Drawn Together was an animated TV show that aired on Comedy Central for three seasons, and sometime after cancellation the network let them have a direct-to-DVD movie as a send-off that they desperately deserved. The premise behind the show was that it was the first ever animated reality TV show. Similar to the house camera shows like Big Brother, the cast would all live in the same house, and would even have backstage confessionals to talk directly to the audience about what was going on. The show completely ridiculed the formula as well as used it to it's advantage.
It would be a crime to only discuss one aspect of Drawn Together and not the two other major aspects that made this show beloved by fans and hated by everyone else. Next I'll discuss the characters. Each character was a send-up of a style of animation, some of them even of an era of animation. They were even all drawn in different styles, and this was pulled off very well (hence the title of the show). There are people who hate this show that love that idea, of eight different styles and eras of animation all sharing the same space. Anyway, there are eight characters, so I'll use eight short paragraphs, really just two or three sentences like the ones they teach you in high school that you never use professionally again. One "paragraph" for each of them.
Foxxy Love was a send-up of seventies detective cartoons, most specifically Josie and the Pussycats, as Foxxy was also a musician. Foxxy tended to be the smartest of the bunch, and certainly the sanest of the bunch on multiple occasions.
Spanky Ham was a vulgar flash cartoon downloaded from the internet. Spanky loved anything crass or disgusting, and got a huge kick out of anything offensive. Spanky was the one who would enjoy everything going south, but still had a heart at the end of it.
Captain Hero was a send-up of superheroes like Superman, but was also a parody of frat boy tough guys that you would see on actual reality TV shows. He was a mix of immoral, feminine, overly masculine, and idiot.
Xander Wifflebottom was a parody of video game characters, and of the 80's cartoon based on video games. Xander was also an incredibly promiscuous homosexual stereotype, and shared Foxxy's spot of usually being the smartest one of the group.
Toot Braunstein was an overweight and self-loathing parody of Betty Boop. Toot was the self-appointed "bitch" because she wasn't pretty, was the most pathetic, and could eat literally anything. (Examples include a TV, one of the show's villains, a cellphone, etc.)
Ling-Ling was a parody of Pikachu, and other Japanese monster animes. Ling-Ling did not speak English, instead a made-up language meant to sound like an Asian one, and preferred to fight anything to the death for fun.
Princess Clara was a parody of the Disney princesses, with the added decision that she was also a right-wing Christian bigot. How much she hated depended on the episode. Which branch of Christianity she worshiped also depended on the episode.
And finally we have Wooldoor Sockbat, who was just a straight up parody of Spongebob. He was technically a parody of "random" and "whacky" cartoon characters, but out of the rest of the cast, he felt most like a straight rip-off of another character.
(Funnily enough, Wooldoor was far more entertaining than when Spongebob Squarepants went in the direction of trying to just please their adult fan base. In the same vein, Spanky is a lot funnier now that internet cartoons have become far more prevalent than they were in 2004 when the show started)
With the plot and cast out of the way, here is the third thing about Drawn Together. The thing that really made some people hate it.
It was an offensive comedy show that never, ever let down. It was once accurately described as "not so much crossing the line as throwing up on it". I think either the producers or one of the voice actors said that, for the record. The show did do satire, but the show itself wasn't satire, like South Park or Duckman. Drawn Together just did whatever it felt like doing, and it went further and further than most would ever dream.
This was a show where the cast could club baby seals in a montage, just because, and just have it be a minor thing they showed in the episode. I would say the closest equivalent would maybe be Family Guy, but all of Family Guy's joke come from the "hey look at this now" cut-away jokes that make the show feel like the writers aren't aware they would rather be writing for a sketch show instead of a sitcom. More importantly, practically nothing that happens in Family Guy's cut-away jokes are remotely relevant to the plot or true to the characters, while Drawn Together stayed true to what they had created.
I normally don't like a show that lacks a continuity, but Drawn Together let us know early on that the continuity would be very lacking, so anything they did might not matter in the next episode, or sometimes within the same episode. This meant they could do anything without repercussion , and if they really liked something they did, they could also slightly mention it or change it just a little bit, and it still felt in line with the series.
To get back on track with the offensive material, this is also something I don't tend to like in other shows. If you are offensive and are a meaningful satire, I tend to appreciate it and like it. If you are vulgar for the sake of it, I tend to not like it. What made me love Drawn Together was that, honestly, it wasn't really just shock value for the sake of it, even when they decided against having social commentary or a lesson to learn. To me, shock value for the sake of it is something like pointing out a dead baby and expecting me to laugh just because it's a dead baby. The comedy style of Drawn Together was more along the lines of "it's a dead baby, but wait, there's more!" It would try to top itself as often as it could, until whatever offensive content they were using was so ridiculous that you could not take it seriously, and my reaction was to laugh at it instead.
I don't actually consider Drawn Together to be a shock value comedy show. I would personally call it an offensive-absurdist comedy. I've already admitted in this blog to really like absurdist comedy, and that is the only explanation I have to adoring this show.
So, yeah, this is an absurdist comedy cartoon, sort of like what I said about CatDog. If, you know, CatDog was actually about a conjoined twin with a third twin who died in the womb and was still-birthed onto their other side but you only saw that happen once in the history of the show, or maybe Dog was black or Hispanic or something and that was the in-universe explanation for why he was slow and stupid, and Cat was white and not only looked down on Dog because of it but was also a practicing skinhead, and instead of greasers bullying them they were brutally mocked by members of the Klan who also happened to be white slavers, and there would at least once be a discussion from them about how the Confederate flag isn't really racist even if they themselves are incredibly racist and use it in a racist manner and okay maybe it is racist after all but why would they care if it was, and every time Cat or Dog lost they actually just exploded into chunks of gore or when they got eaten they would be chewed to pieces first and at least once Winslow would have taken a massive sh#t in Cat's dead mouth just because he's an a##hole. Oh and they would all have to use confessionals like on reality TV.
Something like that.
Speaking of CatDog, in that retrospective I went season by season. It worked then because each season was radically different and easily identifiable. I can't do it too well for this show, but I'll give a small overview of the minor differences.
Season one was incredibly short, and was the most like a parody of reality TV. This season built that up a lot, before the writers decided to go the absurdist route instead. The plots were closer to a parody of something you would see on reality TV: A visit from a mentally retarded cousin, an eating disorder brought upon by self-hate that the others end up making worse due to stupidity, and the finale which was the cast complaining that there wasn't a cash prize.
Then season two and along and said f#ck you to the premise and did whatever it wanted. Aside from the first episode of this season having fun with Survivor, the show just went to the bizarre antics of the cast. This was also the first season where Captain Hero more or less became the main character. The producers realized they had made a character who was completely stupid, and had no moral compass, meaning he could do anything evil or anything good because he was without any moral one way or the other, and he wasn't smart enough to realize this about himself. They could have him do literally anything and it wouldn't be out-of-character. Which, again, is a reason I love this show. It didn't sacrifice character for a joke, it only did jokes with characters it fit with. Oh, this was also the first of two seasons to end with a clip-show. Done much better than normal.
I watched the movie before re-watching the third season, so f#ck you I'm going to talk about the movie. This movie is hated by fans and haters of the show alike. It was done in flash and looks like it, and the movie spent a very long time with a moral that you don't have to hide behind a message to tell the dirtiest and most offensive jokes you want. I'll be honest I don't get the hate, I like the movie. It's not great, but I like it. It's just like the show usually was in terms of offensive comedy, and as for the animation, yeah it's bad but remember I stated earlier that I bought the blu-ray. It doesn't look half bad in 1080p, so yeah, sorry if you bought the DVD, I bet that version does look like sh#t. Also, the blu-ray was exclusive to Best Buy, and I want to know what acts of bondage Best Buy had to do to get the exclusivity contract. You held out on us Best Buy! Be honest with your customers, if you did the dirty for a blu-ray you should say it! The kids need to know.
Also breaking common opinion, the third season might be my favorite. A lot of fans think it's the least good in quality, because it got a lot more into gross humor than usual, but I think it made up for it by having some of the funniest moments in the series. Don't tell me you didn't think Wooldoor becoming a cereal mascot was funny. That was hilarious, one of my favorite episodes hands down. The third season was also my introduction to this series, so maybe that has a factor as well, I was prepared for the furthest they could go from my first day.
I guess I just like the bits of this series that no one likes. Probably a coincidence.
OR IS IT!?
*music sting*
Probably.
OR IS IT?!
*music sting*
Or maybe I don't care anymore about this joke.
OR DO I?!
*music sting*
Okay, I'm done now.
OR AM I!?
*music sting*
As for the blu-ray, you'll have to third party it now through Amazon or Ebay or whatever, but the DVDs of the show are easy to find as well as the DVD of the movie. I guess skip the movie, but I like it so I also recommend it at the same time. Also the show isn't on blu-ray in case that was too f#cking confusing for you. Just the movie.
I give this show ten Drawn Togethers out of ten.
May the force by with you.
This was a good show.