By now, we all know what happens when seven strangers are picked to live in one house for six months, but what happens when these seven strangers are animated?
The concept of animation might seem completely opposed to the idea of reality, but no challenge is apparently too great for Comedy Central, which recently launched a new animated series called "Drawn Together." The show marks a first attempt at combining cartoons with reality TV, but hopefully this first attempt at animated reality will also be the last.
The series, which is the story of eight animated characters picked to live in one animated house, most closely resembles MTV's "The Real World." The dialogue can be witty at times and certainly achieves its purpose of exaggeratedly mimicking the behavior of real-life contestants on reality programs. In its Oct. 27 pilot alone, the characters endured racism and a subsequent fight between a black girl and a white girl, a lesbian kiss, jealousy that led to the unwanted breakup of a relationship and a house member who defecated and farted wherever he so chose. What could possibly be left for the next seven episodes of the season?
One redeeming quality of "Drawn Together," though, is the synthesis of its opposing characters -- at the same time accurately mirroring and successfully mocking what the producers of "The Real World" seek to do. But instead of each character hailing from a different place or socio-economic class, each character is pulled from a different genre of animation. The cast includes Xandir, a video-game-type character on a mission to save his girlfriend; Ling-Ling, a Pikachu look-a-like; Clara, a knock-off Disney princess; and Captain Hero, whose name speaks for itself.
Another redeeming quality about this absurd concept is that the show combines references to other shows besides "The Real World." In the pilot, references to both winning $1 million and voting people out are made, even though "Drawn Off" is a reality show that lacks either of those components. In the second episode, the audience witnesses a reference to the TV hit "The Bachelor."
But besides this reference and an M.C. Escher joke, the second episode was, as expected, devoid of both humor and plot. This episode was not only disappointing, but almost disturbing. The premise centered on the house members trying to kill Princess Clara's enchanted, monstrous genitalia, affectionately named Octopussoir. Because every reality quarrel was touched upon in episode one, it is obvious that "Drawn Together" will have to turn to more fantastical topics, taking advantage of the fact that anything is possible in animation. But 30 minutes devoted to killing an octopus vagina? That's ridiculous.
"Drawn Together" also sometimes tries to be humorous in a offensive manner, la Family Guy, but doesn't quite succeed. Captain Hero wishes for a 12-year-old girl and a donkey to be part of the house, and Princess Clara accidentally tries to sell her black housemate on a slave-trade auctioning block.
One advantage that animated "reality" has over actual reality is the ability to insert song and dance whenever possible. This is sometimes a humorous feature of "Drawn Together," as when an interracial lesbian kiss in a hot tub was fodder for a musical sequence. But breaking into song and dance over Princess Clara's Octopussoir just wasn't funny (as humorous as it may sound).
If you're flipping through the channels, "Drawn Together" is an okay option, but don't race home on Wednesday nights to catch it.