First Impressions - 'Son of Zorn'

10/7/2016

Written by Mike Cervantes

Honestly, I admire the Fox Network for really taking a chance when it comes to the overall television landscape: while other networks are doing their damndest to milk whatever action film and comic properties that are in their parent companies’ stables, or invent upper-class, single-camera sitcoms, in an attempt to create the next Gilmore Girls, Fox is one of the last bastions of a faded but still prevalent art form, the adult animated sitcom. Their Animation Domination lineup, now connected at the hip with TV’s other major purveyor of adult animation, [Adult Swim], has truly defined American television animation from a grown-up’s point of view.

Of course, you can’t hand out that compliment without also speaking of its very obvious downside: we now have 27 seasons of The Simpsons, and 15 seasons of Family Guy, both shows having long since lost their inspiration amidst the demand of more episodes. Bob’s Burgers has become the inspired show that, like King of the Hill before it, anchors Fox’s Sunday lineup as being “all animation,” despite its quality. There is at least one other show by Seth MacFarlane in the lineup that I’m not even mentioning, because while I know it exists, I don’t really care. This is not counting all the shows that were once part of the Network, but now live sheltered lives on basic cable, (Archer, wherefore art thou?) as well as all the cancelled shows like Futurama, that nonetheless live on in [Adult Swim] reruns and the odd crop-up in Hot Topic t-shirts and phone apps.

Enter Son of Zorn, a TV sitcom which features an animated character amongst live actors, not unlike the once-novelty of films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Once upon a time it was suggested that CG would help to achieve the exact same effect as the well known Zemeckis film, on a lower budget. The people who said that didn’t suspect that said CG would also be equally-as-limited, flat, and Flash-style. The [Adult Swim] generation has definitely gotten used to the type of limited movement of Space Ghost and Harvey Birdman, and to better drive home the concept, Zorn is modeled to resemble a character from the days of 1980’s Filmation-style action heroes. When it’s all put together, there’s nothing too terribly jarring about the way the final product looks, which leaves us to how well it acts as a sitcom.

You can see any single screenshot of this show, and instantly know the plot: Zorn (Voiced by Jason Sudekis who I swear is effecting Seth MacFarlane the whole time), a warrior from an all-animated, He-Man-esque island called Zephyria, moves to Orange County in order to re-establish ties with the family of his ex-wife Edie (Cheryl Hines), and his son, Alangulon (Johnny Pemberton), who now goes by the name Alan, and is a vegetarian, and a jaded wimp, who is struggling with average teenage boy problems. Predictably, the entire premise of Zorn, the hero of an entirely fictional space-barbarian fantasy world, immediately falls off, leaving the character a mere symbol of overt masculinity. He has ambitions of winning back his wife, despite her already being married to Craig (Tim Meadows), an equally milquetoast online psychology professor. He also gets a job as a soap dispenser salesman at a sanitation firm, where he refuses to believe his female boss Linda (Artemis Pebdami) holds a position that’s hierarchically superior to him.

Zorn is certainly in the mold of characters like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin: TV dads who are shallow to a degree that they endanger their family relationships simply by existing. But while the families in those animated shows make up for it using the diversities of their own personalities, Zorn’s brood is even more cartoonish than the cartoon they frequently converse with. Edie’s wild-child is often brought out while Zorn is around, and she frequently shows off the reasons she’d ever once had a relationship with a cartoon barbarian. Craig’s philosophies, all based on his low-rent psychological studies, do just as much damage as Zorn’s knee-jerk and often violent reactions. Then there’s Alan, the secondary protagonist of the show. He makes Michael Cera look like….Zorn. The entirety of his on screen presence, in a single-camera show, is one where he never looks at the camera, writes everything off in a timid and angst way, and squirms so often that it’s uncomfortable to watch. It is suggested that Zorn is rubbing slightly off of him, and while it’s often related to the audience that they have nothing in common, they show that Alan is, in one of the show’s most innovating concepts, animated from the pelvis downward.

This show doesn’t have the go-anywhere, do-anything dynamic that Fox’s other animated sitcoms do. All the A-plots take place among Zorn’s family, and all the B-Plots take place at Zorn’s salesman job. (Know how I mentioned Zorn doesn’t respect that his boss is a woman? That’s fine, because Linda refuses to fire Zorn because she believes he is a minority.) There are no regular characters besides these two in the work plots, unless you notice that great amounts of Zorn’s co-workers are guest stars, plucked either from SNL (thanks Tim Meadows) or Mad TV (Thanks Fox execs). These concepts are as mundane as the family ones, and once again rely on Zorn being the one fantastical concept in the whole premise to generate alleged laughs.

While it is awesome that Fox is still willing to mine animation concepts for prime time, and Son of Zorn is one of the most original ideas they’ve had in a while, there’s no denying that the show's limits when it comes to animation, also extend to the story. The whole thing comes off as two-dimensional be it either playing it straight as a sitcom, or falling back on familiar tropes that exist through the entirety of Fox’s animation lineup. Maybe after a first season run, the writers can develop something truly inspired to go along with the gimmick that is the pillar of this series, but as it is right now, it is merely motion-tweening.

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