For the love of cartoons: animation of ‘Rick and Morty’ & ‘Over the Garden Wall

nETFLIX AND STRESS: Game show masterpiece: ‘Family Feud’

“This is Joey Fatone, and it’s time to play Family Feud!” Not only does that sentence reveal the depths to which post-N*SYNC life has carried Fatone, but it also indicates the start of possibly the most engaging game show ever made. It combines the simple with the impossible and the outrageous with the mundane. Gilgamesh and the Iliad combined cannot compare to the sheer staying power that Family Feud brings to modern entertainment. Critically acclaimed dramas and side-splitting comedies alike quake in the face of Steve Harvey’s caterpillar mustache. “Family Feud” can entertain even the ficklest of audiences. It unabashedly holds up a mirror to society and reflects the ideology held therein. It’s a goddamn masterpiece.
The most impressive part of Family Feud is its sheer longevity. It has aired (nonconsecutively) for over thirty years and is showing no slowing in popularity. In June 2015, it surpassed “Wheel of Fortune” as the most-watched syndicated game show on television, a fact which incidentally coincides with the crumbling of Pat Sajak’s marriage. As the show’s most recent host, Harvey brings to the table his superhuman ability to be blown away by even the slightest of inappropriate responses. He goes agape for a solid thirty seconds after someone answers the prompt of “Name someone who uses a pole” with “Stripper!” No matter the frequencies of these outrageous answers, Steve is unfailingly floored. Some point out that it feels as if the producers are steering into the skid by asking loaded questions to prompt inappropriate answers, but is it really their fault that someone comes up with a dirty response to “Name something you put in your mouth but don’t swallow?”
So how exactly does the Feud dominate the game show market? For starters, pretty much anyone can play the game. It’s a unique type of trivia based exclusively on answers to surveys, which means that all the answers depend on the public interviewed. This develops accessibility to a large audience. Some may struggle to answer “Sakura cheese from Hokkaido is a soft cheese flavored with leaves from this fruit tree,” in the form of a question, but everyone can come up with at least one answer to the question “What type of animal do you see in the park?” when it’s asked eight consecutive times. It rewards the common man, the player who’s in tune with the populous.
That said, boy howdy are there some dumb answers on the show, but from an entertainment perspective, buffoonery is equally engaging. “Name a way to say hello in a language other than English.” “Howdy!” “Holla!” “Oui oui!” That episode has forever altered my opinion of our nation’s collective cultural intelligence. It was also not an isolated incident. The frustration induced when a pitifully wrong guess is greeted by a familial chorus of “Good answer! Good answer!” is potent enough to cause a hernia. The pressure of fast money especially can pull embarrassingly revealing answers out of unsuspecting contestants. “Name a place your doctor might look in with a little flashlight.” “Your butt!” Even more disconcerting was that the answer was repeated in the second round.
Family Feud is the same story told a thousand different ways. The questions and answers evolve but the format stays the same. Every game the players change, meaning every game the heroes and villains are made anew. Some families are fun, some are lame, some are awkward as hell, but under the guidance of the modern television messiah Broderick Stephen Harvey, every one of them has a shot at greatness.

nETFLIX AND STRESS: From page to screen: ‘Game of Thrones’ and the adaption process

I can guarantee that if you are a fan of “Game of Thrones,” you know at least one person who constantly compares the show to the books it is based on. Unfortunately for my show-only friends, I am that person, arguably more obnoxious because I binged all five books after watching the last season. To those who are endlessly frustrated by the incessant “Well in the BOOKS…,” I extend an apology. “A Song of Ice and Fire” is finely-crafted, introspective and an incredibly engaging narrative, and because the novels are of obscene length, it’s easy for the reader to become invested in the story. But that doesn’t mean that “Game of Thrones” is an unengaging story, or even that it’s a bad adaptation. It’s an excellent TV show with quality writing, production and acting. The adaptation process itself is why critique is so readily available.
The novel is a purely conceptual medium. All imagery and perception from reading happens within the confines of the consciousness. This means readers can get inside the heads of characters without overt voice-overs. One of the most gripping facets of “A Song of Ice and Fire” is the internal dialogue of the chapter characters. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different set of protagonists, and much of the chapter is their internal narrative and perspective. It’s a fascinating way of understanding the implication of these massively dramatic events on a personal scale, and it allows for some of the most compelling characterization I’ve ever read.
“Game of Thrones” has to tell a different kind of story, as film is a visual experience. The novels it’s based off of thrive not just on internal narrative but also rich exposition and history. It’s difficult to make these things visually compelling, which the show pretty much has to be if it’s going be an entertaining filmic experience. Thrones justifiably sacrifices much of the lore in the literature in favor of spectacle and combat. In doing this, the show maximizes its visual pleasure; the costuming is extravagant, the fight scenes are brutally choreographed and environments are breathtaking. It also succeeds in adapting the books’ compelling dialogue and characterization, helped along by incredible casting. Picking and choosing is always a tough way to adapt, but smart choices make “Game of Thrones” something fans both fresh and old can enjoy.
As a series and not a film, Thrones also has a huge advantage in the adaptation process. One of the largest obstacles standing in the path of the adaptation process is length. Novels are long and meant to be tackled over time. Movies are a one-time, 90-to-200-minute commitment. How do you fit 600 pages of intricate storytelling into a two-hour experience? The short answer is that you can’t, and you just have to show the best possible filmic narrative in those two hours. This often ends up with fans of the original material being disappointed in whatever version of the book ended up on the screen. The series is a simple solution to this problem—by quintupling the time you have to work with, you can track much more of a novel’s plot. Subsequently, the more time audiences spend with characters, the more invested in and knowledgeable of these characters they will be. This also makes television a prime candidate for adapting character-rich novels.
As a fan of both works, it is simultaneously difficult and imperative to refrain from comparison. They are two separate entities, and at this point, their narratives are becoming so far diverged that it’s much more fun to embrace the stories than to try and hold one to the standards of the other. Sometimes I may be frustrated with the show killing off a cool book character who never got his or her due, but at the end of the day, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are still putting out the best fantasy on television.

nETFLIX AND STRESS

For the love of cartoons: animation of ‘Rick and Morty’ & ‘Over the Garden Wall

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Trevor Murray

Columnist

April 14, 2016

My long and complicated relationship with television finds its roots in my childhood and Saturday morning cartoons. Long before I would binge “The Sopranos” into the wee hours of the morning, I was waking up at 9 a.m. to catch the next episode of “Jackie Chan Adventures.” I’ve always had a wild imagination that was drawn to fantasy, and these cartoons were all fantastical in one way or another. As an adult, I still have a spot in my heart for animation, and I think it’s a very special category of television. From this, I’d like to recommend three shows that rise above the rest and showcase the best that animation has to offer.

Even if its writing and acting are top notch, high concept television instantly becomes campy when its production value cannot realistically fulfill its vision. Perhaps the largest advantage that animation holds over live-action television is that its only limits are in the realm of imagination.

Through this lens of boundless potential, the creative geniuses of Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland converge into the best science fiction on TV: “Rick and Morty.” Animation allows this show to be about as high concept as it gets. It follows the adventures of super scientist Rick Sanchez and his grandson Morty. It vacillates between outlandish sci-fi adventure, absurd comedy and genuinely introspective moments. Some plots are domestic and grounded, some are action-packed with science fiction and others parody movies and television. The best part about this show is that in two seasons, its versatility demonstrates that it has nowhere to go but up.

“Rick and Morty” is targeted exclusively to adults, but in terms of universal appeal, there is no title that supersedes Cartoon Network’s one-off series, “Over the Garden Wall.” Between its network and limited run, this 10-episode animated miniseries managed to slip under almost everyone’s radar. Each episode is only 12 minutes long, but in just 120 minutes, showrunner Patrick McHale tells a beautiful and gripping story. The tale follows two brothers’ journey to escape the mysterious and nonsensical realm known as “the Unknown.” It’s filled with wondrous visuals, musical numbers, sinister plot twists and genuinely lovely moments.

Both this description and the show’s beginning episodes may make it seem juvenile, but do not be fooled; this is in every way a story for all ages. It is another excellent example of how a self-contained series can use each episode to build more and more into a plot that concludes in one, cathartic finale. Every pair of episodes raises the stakes of the narrative, and by the sixth, it’s practically impossible not to rush through to see how the story ends. “Over the Garden Wall” captures pure youthful wonder with a cast of charming characters; if you have a couple of hours, I cannot recommend this adventure enough.

This last show is one that uses animation as a tool to blend the worlds of realism and absurdity. In early showings, previewers said it was too dark and not funny enough, so the creative team decided to make half of the cast animal-people, and “Bojack Horseman” was born. Will Arnett voices the titular character, a washed up actor struggling to bring happiness back into his life. I have never seen a show so effortlessly fluctuate between laugh-out-loud comedy and brooding, depressive drama. It starts out slowly, but halfway through its first season, the show explodes into inexplicably compelling writing. The second season follow-up is nothing short of a whirlwind, dealing out explosive and topical plotlines episode after episode. “Bojack” is a gripping journey that hits every emotional target it can find—yet another brilliant mark on Netflix’s increasingly impressive resume.

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