COWBOY PETE WHACKS A LIL’ BUSH

I think it’s no secret that the old Cowboy isn’t exactly the biggest fan of George W. Bush. So it was with some anticipation that I was looking forward to Comedy Central’s “Lil’ Bush.”

Granted, I was annoyed since I really thought the proper abbreviation is “Li’l.” And I had some trepidation over the notion of taking a cartoon series that was designed as a series of shorts and expanding it into a half hour series. Then again, I was dubious over the prospect of expanding the four foul-mouthed kids from the Santa versus Jesus short making the rounds in Hollywood into “South Park,” and I was wrong about that. So I was willing to give this one a shot.

In “Silence of the Lambs” (yes, this segue is actually relevant) Hannibal Lecter, in giving Clarice a clue about Buffalo Bill’s killing patterns, says, “Doesn’t it seem desperately random to you?”

Watching “Lil’ Bush” for two straight weeks reminds me of that in that it is isn’t simply not funny. It’s desperately not funny. Watching the writers of “Lil’ Bush” go for laughs is like watching a drunk midget in a batting cage swinging at a high fastball: The misses are so wide that the only amusing thing about it is the endeavor, and even then it’s kind of winceworthy.

Out of date before it even got on the air (Lil’ Rumsfeld?), bewildering in its own concept and continuity (George HW Bush is president, but we’re toppling Hussein, there’s an adult Condy Rice and Ðìçk Cheney co-existing with the kid counterparts), tasteless beyond the pale (Lil’ Ðìçk Cheney has sex with Barbara Bush, winds up taking refuge in her uterus and has to be delivered via abortion…yes, you read that right), all I can wonder is: If a Bush-despising liberal who doesn’t mind jokes in poor taste considers it unwatchable, who the hëll is the intended audience for this thing?

PAD

49 comments on “COWBOY PETE WHACKS A LIL’ BUSH

  1. Don’t hold back, tell us how you really felt. 🙂

    I’m glad I passed on this show. I had read a brief unfavorable review about it before it aired. With the long lead time needed on animation it is quite dangerous to do anything political due to it easily being out of date by the time it airs.

    Neil

  2. I’ve noticed there are people who find offending equals funny. (Look no furthur than “Jáçkášš” for proof of this)
    Perhaps they aren’t trying to be funny, simply offensive. ‘Hey Mr. Bush, THIS is what we think of you.’

  3. Jáçkášš is High Comedy compared to Lil Bush. It’s a comedy black hole.

    The only people who will like it are Bush fans who can use it as an example of what happens when you let politics get in the way of being funny. Other than that…

    It DOES make you apprecuate the genius of South Park though. They make it look easy. It ain’t.

  4. “It DOES make you apprecuate the genius of South Park though. They make it look easy. It ain’t.”

    Even Trey and Matt failed at lampooning Bush. “That’s My Bush” was an abysmal failure. I watched the first 15 minutes of the first episode, saw the talking aborted fetus, and gave up on the series.

  5. “The only people who will like it are Bush fans who can use it as an example of what happens when you let politics get in the way of being funny.”

    If that. I haven’t heard much about the Half-Hour News Hour, even though it proves the same point, with added commentary why the television pitch of “It’s like X, but for Y” never works.

    Luckily, the depths of unfunny exhibited by those two shows mean that they’ll be mercifully forgotten soon enough.

  6. I thought the talking aborted fetus was kind of funny. For a talking aborted fetus. “Where is she? I can’t see because I was ABORTED.”

    Anyway, it was really just a satire of sit-coms with some politics tossed in. I don’t think it would have been very different if a few less confused Florida voters had made it be THAT’S MY GORE instead.

  7. The target audience is stoners.

    Not even. This show will make them lose their appetite…

  8. I only got halfway through the first episode of Lil’ Bush. The moment they started the Graduate parody with Barbara Bush, I gave up. Up to that point it hadn’t been funny, but that was over the line. What has she done to deserve a child molestation joke? Hearing that it went even farther makes me glad I turned my TV off.

    That’s My Bush was OK. Yeah, the aborted fetus was the best part. “Remember when I said the leader of the group was a freak? Well, I forgot to wiggle my fingers and say it like this, ‘He’s a FREEEAAAK!!'” I think That’s My Bush would have gotten better if it had lasted longer.

    Lil’ Bush will probably get better over time, too. If it makes it to a third season, it might be only *mildly* horrendous.

  9. Peter’s reaction to this is the same type of reaction I get when flipping through the Mad Magazine on the stands today. The content seems mean spirited and not funny in the way the past days of Mad walked a fine line. The humor of both the Mad of today and Li’l Bush seems to,(as I think I mentioned in another thread,) agenda driven not humor driven. And no I am not a Bush fan as David Gian-Cursio stated. (I may be conservative, but that does not mean I lack common sense. Which I fine increasingly neither that common or making sense in today’s world.)

    Think I will go watch “Rocky & Bullwinkle” for the way satire should be handled.

    Bobb

  10. How prescient. I just decided to watch Li’l Bush for the first time yesterday. I went in with an open mind, and I thought it sucked. I mean, I thought it REALLY sucked. The art was bad and the writing was even worse.

    And while other shows, such as South Park, may also have bad art, the writing is often clever and funny. Not so with Li’l Bush.

    It reeked.

    Too bad… the premise sounded like it might actually work.

  11. The whole time setting thing confused me too. (Which Bush administration are we in now?)

    Peter David: tasteless beyond the pale (Lil’ Ðìçk Cheney has sex with Barbara Bush, winds up taking refuge in her uterus and has to be delivered via abortion…
    Luigi Novi: Is that really any more tasteless than what South Park has done? They’ve had a Kenny lookalike hide inside Ms. Crabtree’s uterus, an episode in which Cartman used the stem cells from dozens of aborted fetuses to build his own Shakey’s, had all four boys hide inside the rectum of an obese woman to sneak into Terrance’s dressing room, had Cartman hide inside Ms. Choksondik’s corpse, etc.

    Neil Ottenstein: With the long lead time needed on animation it is quite dangerous to do anything political due to it easily being out of date by the time it airs.
    Luigi Novi: Unless they were to go the South Park route.

  12. “Luigi Novi: Is that really any more tasteless than what South Park has done? They’ve had a Kenny lookalike hide inside Ms. Crabtree’s uterus, an episode in which Cartman used the stem cells from dozens of aborted fetuses to build his own Shakey’s, had all four boys hide inside the rectum of an obese woman to sneak into Terrance’s dressing room, had Cartman hide inside Ms. Choksondik’s corpse, etc.”

    Well…yeah. Yeah, some of them were funny because there was some point to it beyond the grossness of the act itself (I mean, how can you not read the description of the Cartman sequence and not smile and shake your head at that?) plus, y’know, Barbara Bush, for God’s sake? All the sequences you’re describing happened with characters on the show, not real people. And for the record, I wasn’t that wild about the Oprah episode which was equally tasteless and not funny. On the other hand, the Hillary Clinton one with the nuclear device in her vágìņá was both tasteless and yet funny…unless, I suppose, you’re Hillary Clinton.

    I mean, a “Graduate” spoof? Not exactly timely.

    PAD

  13. The thing about the South Park examples is that Parker and Stone– on their best days– use grotesque/ “inappropriate” humor to make a larger point. Kenny crawled inside Ms. Crabtree in an episode that lampooned the idea of “shock comics” and pointed out that they’re basically just prostitutes. Cartman used stem cells from aborted fetuses to clone a restaurant in an episode that took aim that the emotional rhetoric surrounding the stem cell debate.

    Of course, South Park on a bad day results in episodes with Oprah’s talking vágìņá, or Al Gore being an alarmist about Manbearpig.

    Also– I just watched the DVD version of That’s My Bush! and found that it’s held up surprisingly well. I think people in 2001 thought that Parker and Stone were going to present the world with political satire, and instead they got a really clever sitcom parody. It was funny, but not in the way that people expected, so nobody supported it. In the long run, this was probably a good thing. How many times can you really say, “Sitcoms are dumb”? Okay, but how many times can you say it and still have it be insightful and funny? That’s what I thought.

  14. I must be old-fashioned. I found neither series especially worthwhile. The foul-mouthed kids in SOUTH PARK had me turn it off after about ten minutes. LIL’ BUSH lasted a little longer before I gave up on it.

  15. I actually liked the SP episode with Oprah.

    Yeah, it was tasteless, and I won’t tell anyone they’re wrong for not liking it. For me, it was just not as offensive since the talking vágìņá and áššhølë had nothing to do with Oprah. They acted like completely different characters who didn’t represent her opinions at all. That’s a lot different than showing Barbara Bush seducing an 8 year old.

    But I even if I wasn’t offended by the stuff on Li’l Bush, it just isn’t funny. They’re using so many catch phrases and tired old jokes that I can almost always look at the setup and write the punch lines for them. It’s old material.

  16. Even I (a regular at Spike n Mikes’ Sick and Twisted Animation Festival)Thought that Lil’ Bush was bad. Shock is worthless if it doesn’t bring the laughs or insight.

  17. Peter David: And for the record, I wasn’t that wild about the Oprah episode which was equally tasteless and not funny. On the other hand, the Hillary Clinton one with the nuclear device in her vágìņá was both tasteless and yet funny…unless, I suppose, you’re Hillary Clinton.
    Luigi Novi: Yeah, that whole Oprah “midge” thing made no sense to me. Although I have to admit I kinda got real nastiness vibe from the Hilary one.

    Peter David: I mean, a “Graduate” spoof? Not exactly timely.
    Luigi Novi: No, I guess not, but not all spoofs are timely. South Park has spoofed lots of stuff from years past, and it has done it well.

    Bradley: The thing about the South Park examples is that Parker and Stone– on their best days– use grotesque/ “inappropriate” humor to make a larger point.
    Luigi Novi: Sometimes they do. At other times, it’s just arbitrary. Their obsession with scatology, for example, which shows up in so many episodes (in many cases not pertinent to the plot) is the main reason why, when they attack Family Guy in “Cartoon Wars Part I” by having Cartman say that his jokes are “deep” “situational” and “relevant”, all I can do is just roll my eyes and say, “Oh, get over yourself.”

  18. “by having Cartman say that his jokes are “deep” “situational” and “relevant”, all I can do is just roll my eyes and say, “Oh, get over yourself.””

    Don’t forget, *Cartman* said that. Cartman is often more extreme than the writers. That episode also had several people saying they liked Family Guy and defending the show.

  19. It was obvious that in that scene, Cartman was acting as Parker and Stone’s mouthpiece. Moreover, on a website, they were asked what they really thought about Family Guy, and their response was something to the effect of “Watch that episode.”

  20. Oh, they certainly have bad opinions about Family Guy, but Cartman’s comments were an *exaggerated* version of those opinions. It wouldn’t be Cartman if he wasn’t over the top. The whole plot of him going to the studio wouldn’t even make sense if he was being less extreme.

    So yeah, Cartman implied that South Park was great and wonderful and always morally superior. But in another part of the show someone commented on Family Guy saying, “At least it’s not up its own ášš with messages.” Matt and Trey are fully aware that they get preachy sometimes.

    Based on that, plus other interviews I’ve read where those guys talked about the show, they have both opinions. They have a low opinion of Family Guy, but they also respect its fans and appreciate that people get enjoyment out of it. So don’t take Cartman’s opinion to be the whole of their opinion.

    Fun Fact: The makers of The Simpsons sent Matt and Trey flowers the day after the Family Guy parody aired.

  21. After reading the first sentence of the second paragraph, I was going to say, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Cartman implied that SP was “great and wonderful”. IIRC, Parker and Stone poked fun at their show twice in Part II by saying it was “up its ášš and preachy with messages”. That’s one reason why they have credibility for me. Like MAD magazine, they don’t take themselves too seriously, and aren’t afraid to poke fun at themselves.

    But ya beat me to it.

    Another example is when they poked fun at the quality of Baseketball in “The Passion of the Jew”.

  22. Baseketball as OK. Not great, maybe not even good, but it was reasonably mediocre.

    Cannibal: The Musical gave me nightmares. I’d rather watch Lil’ Bush than watch Cannibal: The Musical again.

  23. The StarWolf –
    The foul-mouthed kids in SOUTH PARK had me turn it off after about ten minutes.

    South Park certainly isn’t for everybody, but I do think there are plenty of episodes during its run that would (or at least should) make you stop and think.

    Of course, they *could* tell such messages under a more family friendly format. But not everything needs to be Twilight Zone or Star Trek (as two examples of morality messages presented with a twist) to get their point across.

    Luigi Novi –
    Moreover, on a website, they were asked what they really thought about Family Guy, and their response was something to the effect of “Watch that episode.”

    And the problem is what, exactly? 🙂

    I watch Family Guy now and then, but I never gave it much thought… until i saw the South Park episode and saw that Parker & Stone were 100% right about Family Guy.

    That doesn’t mean I still don’t enjoy Family Guy and it’s complete and total randomness, but the show really is mostly about complete and total randomness.

  24. I haven’t sampled this yet but a couple of local DJ’s here in Portland Oregon on KUFO 101.1’s Cort and Fatboy show do a dámņëd hilarious running series of bits called George W. Bush Boy President that is truly hilarious. They have a disc on sale and proceeds go to charity if anyone is interested in a real laugh.

  25. I think the *randomness* factor happens in most cartoons. Yeah, FAMILY GUY tosses in whatever joke comes to mind without any need for logical connection. Then again, how many wacky or zany adventures happen on THE SIMPSONS that wouldn’t work if Homer had to go for a job, or Bart actually had to attend school? For that matter, how many ways have they “explained” Kenny’s deaths? (Everyone forgot; Kenny did die of a terminal illness — then came back without explanation; Kenny’s parents kept having more babies and naming them all Kenny.)

  26. The problem with Lil’ Bush is that there’s no satire there. I said it before: They’re portraying a president with the maturity level of an 8-year old as an actual 8-year old. Where’s the satire?

    I watched the “Haliburtonworld” bit on Youtube. I’m still trying to figure out which was less funny: Lil’ Bush or Fox’s Half-hour News Hour.

  27. I could use some serious funny right now…just drove 9 hours from a visit with my kids to come back to North Carolina to see my wife through a gall bladder operation (a minor operation but still) and just found out about WWE wrestler Chris Benoit–dead, along with his wife and 7 year old son in what appears to be a double murder suicide. I feel ill.

    Wrestling fans–I know we have a few–am I the only one who never saw anything remotely like this coming? There are plenty of seriously damaged people in the biz but Benoit always seemed like one of the regular guys. This is unbelievable.

  28. >South Park certainly isn’t for everybody, but I do think there are plenty of episodes during its run that would (or at least should) make you stop and think.

    You clearly have much company in this, but I can’t help feel that if they go out of their way to alienate (no pun intended) potential audiences with needless, excessive vulgarity in the first episode, they won’t get to show off to them their cleverness later.

  29. “and just found out about WWE wrestler Chris Benoit–dead, along with his wife and 7 year old son in what appears to be a double murder suicide. I feel ill.”

    Shìŧ, and I thought Chris was one of the best performers (and most underused) the WWE had. He wasn’t flashy or flamboyant or over-the-top like most of the wrestlers, he was the most..”Believable” I guess is the word, people they had.

    Ðámņ, that totally is just…awful…

  30. “I haven’t heard much about the Half-Hour News Hour”

    I think that there hasn’t been much said about it because it was touted as the Answer To The Daily Show and it fell very short. I watched it twice at work, and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t GOOD, either. It was actually more “What If A Bad High School Drama Department Did SNL’s Weekend Update Or Not Necessarily The News?”

  31. Wrestling fans you are not alone. Years ago when I ran a local BBS, i was part of the old Comic Book Network, Steven Grant, (and one other comic author I forget who), used to describe how the watched wrestling. It has been years, but I think Steven referred to it as the closest thing we had to real life comics. I’m sure if someone emails Mr. Grant he might be able to give the correct statement.

    Bobb (i.I.)

  32. Pro Wrestling is “Soap Opera” for men 🙂

    Of course, since the real ECW and WCW folded, WWE has gone so downhill without real competition I don’t really watch anymore, mostly gettting my fix from on-line wrestling sites…

  33. Scott Bland said:
    “”That’s My Bush” was an abysmal failure. I watched the first 15 minutes of the first episode, … and gave up on the series.”
    —–

    Scott, I know what you mean. I watched the first 2 minutes of Gone With The Wind, saw the Blacks working in the fields, and gave up on the movie.

  34. The StarWolf

    I must be old-fashioned. I found neither series especially worthwhile. The foul-mouthed kids in SOUTH PARK had me turn it off after about ten minutes.

    Just hearing about it when it started was enough for me to not watch it. I mean, a bunch of cartoon kids cussing a lot? Big deal.

    Then folks where I work started watching it and talking about it the next day – and it sounded like they actually had something to say (at least some of the time) so I started watching it.

    Don’t get to watch it much anymore but while some of the shows were just ‘eh’, a lot of the time it was really funny.

    (and the whole flag controversy episode had me rolling on the floor crying I was laughing so hard)

  35. Since it seems to be just as funny as the “Half Hour News Hour”, isn’t it likely that it’s put together by people with the same mindset? The assumption is that since it’s on Comedy Central that it comes from a liberal/Democratic slant. I think it comes from the Republican Party so they can point at the tasteless humor and tell the conservative base, “See! See! See how they disrespect the President! That’s why you can’t let them back in the White House! And be the way, 9/11!”

  36. “Of course, since the real ECW and WCW folded, WWE has gone so downhill without real competition I don’t really watch anymore, mostly gettting my fix from on-line wrestling sites…”

    TNA Wrestling’s “Impact” 9:00 PM EST Thursday Night on Spike TV.

    Ring of Honor has started airing bi-monthly PPVs for $10.00 on most PPV providers (DirecTV being
    the only one that doesn’t air them).

    Go watch them if you haven’t already.

  37. Bill M: I’ve felt gut punched since last night when I heard about it. (if you click on my link, I write about it on my lj). Benoit was truly one of my heroes, showing that thru dedication and working hard alone, you could succeed despite having odds stacked against you…and now his story is ending in a way so lurid you wouldn’t see it on a fox TV movie.

    You’re just left with such confliciting emotions…the loss of a great performer (2, if you were a fan of his wife as well), the horror of the truth as it’s being revealed, the confusion over the unanswered questions. As you said, Benoit wasn’t one of the bad seeds. His reputation was as a great family man, as someone who was all about working hard, who’s reputation wasn’t as a prima dona, but as some one who’d show the same respect to the lowest roadie as to the ceo.

    On Topic…yeah, Lil’ Bush really sucked.

  38. Lil’ Bush

    I said in the last “Lil’ Bush” thread that the shorts the thing was based on were, to say the least, unfunny. From everything that I’ve seen or read and from the things some friends of mine have said about the show itself… I’m just glad I didn’t give up any of my time to watch the thing.

    Chris Benoit

    I have no words.

  39. Posted by JamesLynch at June 25, 2007 11:32 PM
    Everyone forgot; Kenny did die of a terminal illness — then came back without explanation;

    That was an intentional joke. It was part of a running gag, and is consistent with the character since his introduction. Thus, it’s not random.

    At the end of a season, Kenny died for real. Then for the entire following season, the other three boys had tryouts to see who would be the new member in their group, thus legitimazing his death and making it an integral part of the season’s plot. Kenny’s reappearances have never been explained. So when he unceremoniously walks on screen during the season after, the boys’ only response was “Oh hey Kenny. We haven’t seen you around in a while.” It wasn’t random, it was a joke set up two years in advance.

  40. “Cannibal: The Musical is a wonderful film, and I will not have it maligned.”

    Well that’s too bad, cause I gots my malignin’ shoes on!

  41. Getting back to the original subject: Though I found some things in the second episode amusing: Calling the kid who gets killed “Red Shirt” was a hoot, Lil’ Bush lacks the biting edge of a South Park and so misses it’s mark.

  42. I find it telling that their “Reviewer’s Quotes” ad consists of but two words of a (apparently negative) review in the “New York Times.” Did no one have anything nice to say about this show?

  43. I was turned off of Lil’ Bush from the promos. And I’m a guy who watched Mr. Wong and Hard Drinkin’ Lincoln on the old Icebox animation site.

    The real problem is that Comedy Central has had really bad luck picking animation talent. South Park put their network on the map, more so than the beloved MST3K, and they were wise to keep Parker and Stone happy. Because they’ve failed to find anyone else.

    I have some suspicions how CC passed up on good animated shows like The Boondocks and Family Guy (which before its success on Adult Swim, they could have had for a song). My guess: the shows didn’t have any standup comics. CC was started on the basis of running stand-up routines back to back, almost continuously. They were the sweatshop of stand-up comics. They have problems programming anything else. When they did run into non-standup stuff like MST3K or Bill Maher’s Politically Correct they either infuriated the creators or the shows went elsewhere.

  44. Left Lil’ Bush on for a couple minutes after South Park ended last night.

    I got as far as Lil’ Bush getting sacked during football practice and decided that watching last Saturday’s episode of Naruto was a better way to spend the next 25 minutes.

  45. Thomas E, Reed stated:
    “The real problem is that Comedy Central has had really bad luck picking animation talent. South Park put their network on the map, more so than the beloved MST3K, and they were wise to keep Parker and Stone happy. Because they’ve failed to find anyone else.”

    Aren’t they the ones who are reviving “Futurama”?

    The revival of “Family Guy” & “Futurama” reminds me of the old “Saturday Night Live” sketch “The Clams”, where they penned the line, “Every year Brian DePalma digs up an old directors bones and gives his wife a job” (Sorry if I messed up the quote. I was watching SNL back in the Mesozoic age.) Comedy Central with the exceptions of S.P, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report are acting like the other TV networks. They try to remake what was once popular in hoping it will catch on again. Or they wait to grab on to something they think is already popular out there, hence Li’l Bush.

    Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim is time better spent then 90% of what C.C. runs these days.

    Bobb

  46. Don’t know if you take offense to the term Mister… but I’ll use it anyway. Mr. David, your observations on this show are completely justified. I knew it was going to be a horror show the moment I first saw the promos. You put the thoughts I had about it into words… perfectly. Thank you for that. And thank you for Apropos. You are my new favorite author. Don’t give up on him. As talented as you are, sir, he could be a career. I know how limiting that sounds… and have no response to it. I just want to read more about him and his (mis)adventures. Thank you for all you’ve given us to this point.

    –Derek Belden

  47. I love the show despite its flaws. Bush wearing Aquaman underpants was hilarious to me. And his dream of becoming a “decider” so he could decide to begin an over-pants revolution was also funny.

    The show needs work, true. I think the writers obviously aren’t conservatives, but I don’t think they’re really all that politically minded. They tend to stick to the easy criticisms (such as Barbara Bush telling him “it’s okay to hate people who are different from you”).

    If they really wanted to take hits on Cheney, they’d have him sticking drills in everybody he meets to see if he can draw oil from their bodies. He’d have a pump and container labeled “property of Halliburton.” Instead, they have him bite heads off bunnies (or whatever).

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