Adult oriented cartoons and animation that involve potty humor are well established, be it South Park, Drawn Together, or some hentai anime. However, the vulgarities were just a means to tell an often outrageous joke. But ‘twould seem that for some people, humorless in-your-face sex references is the new norm. Case in point:
millions of talented starving artists in existence and this shit gets chosen to be put on television streaming pic.twitter.com/2oZhIj7G7t
— elly (@kanesadakasen) September 14, 2017
How bad does it get? The story is about kids hitting puberty and includes an adult character promoting to a child oral sex in a pointless and humorless way. South Park, in contrast, had far worse, but it felt less off-puttingly vulgar because it was done in a humorous way that was based in part on its over the top outrageousness. Also:
apparently they actually show some of the kids' dicks and vags in the trailer even but i didnt watch that far so
pinch of salt??
— hes the angry rpg ne (@leomonbutgay) September 14, 2017
Shocking and vulgar things can be funny, but they are not per se funny. Absent a good set-up or other comedic aspect it will range from boring to creepy.
As can be seen above, another aspect being increasingly embraced by American animators is horrid character designs.
japan: lets draw our characters cuter
america: lets draw our characters as the most horrid looking people ever to exist pic.twitter.com/pNRB8kCW5D
— 馃巵halloween馃巹 (@Phaaanta) September 16, 2017
This isn’t to say that cartoonish or even stylized designs can’t work, but the designs have to work with the humor and style of the show. Even then, quality designs can cover up a poor plot, while horrid designs are only palatable if the writing and directing is otherwise top notch. In the case of “Big Mouth”, it appears to have neither.
The NOT SAFE FOR WORK trailer can be seen below, if you dare…
#BigMouth is coming. All over the place. 馃挦馃檲
Sept 29 on @netflix. pic.twitter.com/P2yFic0oq9
— Big Mouth (@bigmouth) September 12, 2017
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