Saturday Morning All Star Hits!

Bento Box Entertainment

Comedy Animation
English     5.7     2021     USA

Overview

Wildly irreverent and slightly disturbing, this adult animation, live-action hybrid celebrates the campy, Saturday-morning shows of the '80s and '90s.

Reviews

W.Wolf wrote:
A satirical send up to the late 80s, early 90s Saturday Morning Cartoon Block. Complete with original cartoons that despite being ridiculous, adult concepts repacked for children, painfully written corporate/government PR campaigns and nothing short of a 30 minute commercial to sell you yet another piece of plastic shaped like a toy. In short exactly like how it was back in the day. The show loosely follows show hosts Skip and Trevor. The brothers act as VJs trying to pump up the audience for each new cartoon. As Skip's career suddenly takes off based entirely off a single stupid catch phrase, while leaving his brother Trevor behind. Simultaneously breaking news of a celebrity murder peppers the show. Ultimately ending once Skips ill advised live action movie of a cartoon show crashes and burns. After a fist to face, heart to heart, the brothers get back together and become the new hosts of an MTV clone, M.E.A.R.S.H (Monday Early Afternoon Rock Song Hits). Overall the show does try to evoke the feeling of the time. The picture is heavily "fuzzed" to recreate that low rez SD on a tube TV feel. The VJ segments are incredibly hammy, as they were in reality. The cartoons themselves are decently done. All of them are obviously playing off of real shows. I won't say this show is for everyone though. I suspect it relies heavily on the nostalgia factor. So viewers not from the time period likely won't get the overall "joke" of the show. Instead they'll probably find it ham fisted, somewhat schizophrenic and generally lame. The "joke" being that this IS how ridiculous Saturday Morning Cartoon Blocks were. It was adults, guessing what kids liked, pushing lame jokes as hard as they could. When they found something that worked, they'd inevitably over use it. All for the singular purpose to sell toys. This probably would have worked better if they had peppered the show with more fake commercials to complete the effect. You likely aren't missing anything if you skip this one. But if you are in the mood for a distorted trip down memory lane its a decent ride.

Similar

Bob and Margaret is a Canadian/UK animated television series that was also shown in the United States and all over the world. The series was produced by Nelvana, a Toronto animation studio, and created by Canadian David Fine and Brit Alison Snowden. The series was based on the Academy Award winning short film Bob's Birthday, featuring the same main characters, which won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar in 1994. The series is one of the few Canadian TV shows to ever have regular American exposure. In Canada, it was the highest rated Canadian made animation series ever when it aired in prime time on Global Television. The show revolved around a married English couple named Bob and Margaret Fish, a middle class 40-ish working couple with no children and two dogs named William and Elizabeth. Bob is a dentist and Margaret is a chiropodist. Bob and Margaret struggle with everyday issues and mid life crisis. Stories often revolve around the mundane, but in a way which is eminently relatable. From the trials of shopping to dealing with friends who annoy them, but owe them a dinner. In the first two seasons, Bob and Margaret lived in England, in the South London community of Balham. For the third and fourth seasons, however, they moved to Toronto, Canada, allowing the writers to explore the humour of culture clash. The move was actually inspired by the realities of funding, with certain Canadian tax benefits dependent on stories actually based in Canada. As such, to keep the series funded, the move was necessary. The creators of the series chose to take an executive role on these latter two seasons, reviewing scripts and consulting, but not involved in the detail they were for the first two seasons. Snowden continued to provide the voice of Margaret, but Bob's voice, originally played by Andy Hamilton, was replaced by Brian George.

More info
Bob and Margaret
1998