This hipster cartoon-thing is getting out of hand, and if we don’t do something about it soon, I fear it’ll reach epidemic proportions. What? You think I’m overreacting? Just watch Comedy Central’s new animated program “Freak Show” and see for yourself. The identifiable “no style as a style” thing surfaced back in the ’90s with the MTV cult hit, “Beavis and Butt-head”—when it was more slacker than hipster. While not groundbreaking, it was also effective when applied to the Adult Swim cult hit “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” But in this most recent case, it seems more like cult shit than cult hit.
The brainchild of actor/comedian David Cross and actor/writer H. Jon Benjamin, it features a ragtag team of carnival attractions that is actually comprised of glorified errand boys for the U.S. government. From their secret lair, accessible through a public porta-potty, Freak Squad, led by Siamese twins with the power to split at will, accepts sloppy second missions from the Pentagon. The gang includes the slow-witted World’s Tallest Nebraskan, who can shrink a full 6 inches, a premature infant that can projectile vomit with pinpoint accuracy, a shape-shifting Log Cabin Republican and an anarchist Bearded Clam, who ... well, I really don’t know what she does, but trust me, it’s a power so equally useless that it’s rarely utilized.
When Otto Binder created “The Legion of Substitute Heroes” for DC Comics 40 years ago, he understood that, despite the fact that the characters were inept rejects trying to prove their worth, their powers, while unimpressive, had to be as accessible as their personalities. The aesthetics wouldn’t matter if there were great scripts behind it, but time is never spent investing in the personalities or the abilities of the characters in “Freak Show.” Unfortunately, all that exists is a series of tent pole incidents supporting a flimsy plot, which I admit, is not all bad: At times, the astute political throwbacks and incessant banter reaches a smirk-worthy pace, but it’s barely enough to fill out an entire episode.
High on concept and low on content, “Freak Show” feels like a cut-and-paste job rescued from the rejected idea bin at Cartoon Network. Can you think of anything more threadbare right now than a superhero concept? Attach an anti-corporation subplot, mix in some gross-out jokes and a handful of celebrity voices and you have something that might get your attention. This is one sideshow that isn’t worth the price of admission.
