I know I said I enjoy writing on this blog, but I suspect there may be brain damage involved as well.
Anyway, a few notes on this installment: from here on out, where .gifs are needed, they'll be added. Lucky you. As well, expect these to get shorter, since for one, I can't harp on the opening every time, and for another, I think we've already conveyed the terrible animation. Now all that's left to focus on is the abominable plot! As a final note, I refrained from declaring jihad on the two Brians (Clevinger and Carroll) until I could find out why they were credited. Apparently, according to an acquaintance, Carroll co-wrote episode 8. I'll keep that in mind.
On to the review, now!
Episode 2
Running Time: 5:27
Summary: Ethan doesn't want to go to work, and violence ensues for no reason.
So Ethan is staying home and fucking around instead of going to work. Sadly, we won't get any sort of sane idea, no. Instead, it's Zany Plan Time, and he decides his robot (who, I admit, has one of the better voices in the series) should call in as a "concerned relative" when he arrives, claim a family member died or something, and then get the manager to let him go home. All this after said manager calls the house and says "why the hell aren't you at work".
I'm serious here, folks. If there is any one thing in this series that'll give me an aneurysm, it's how damn much they focus on the "Ethan is the worst employee imaginable so let's never fire him, ever, the precious darling" angle. If these hadn't all been made before I wrote the last post, I'd think this was an intentional attempt on my life.
Also funny in this opening: we get a pretty clear "shit", but I still keep thinking back to the unfinished cutaway on "son of a..." last episode. Anyone know if the first episode was made at a different time than the rest? It might explain some of this.
Ethan's voice actor sounds better speaking Spanish than he does English. It's making me wonder if the talent was farmed out, because as more than one person's pointed out, and as I said in comparing the title roll to the rest of the animation: Blind Ferret has some skill in their offices. Where did it all go? I'm hesitant, after talking to some people, to claim it's all Buckley's fault, because from what I heard, he was as frustrated on some of it as I seem to be. It is, as they say, a mystery.
Doesn't make it much better, though. Just like the pre-intro scene being the same one-note gag over and over for an entire minute. "Hi, Ethan, come into the store. You work today." "I'm already there." "I called your house phone." "No, no, I'm in the store!" "So I imagine if I look around, I'll 'find you' in 20 minutes, or so?" "Yes. Except I'm already there."
That bit to the right is Ethan's "epiphany face", by the way, the instant he comes up with the highly convoluted plan to stay home. I really can't get over how far-fetched they have to go just to write these plots. Shit, sitting here off the top of my head I can think of 5 less-moronic ways to stay home from work: call in sick, claim you're caring for the ill family member to begin with (also explains why you didn't call work, being so concerned and all), make the above face all day until you're sent home (although once more, I'm using real logic here, so this one might not work), say your car broke down, or make up some sort of blackmail material you have on the boss that'd require him to let you stay home.
Hell, turn that last one into a plot and you might have something amusing. The boss has some horrible secret (cheating on his wife, dealing crack from the store to keep it open, whatever), and meanwhile Ethan has a picture of him eating an employee's lunch or something, the two not knowing the other is on an entirely different page. Bonus points if the boss tries to have a hitman rub Ethan out to protect himself.
Aaaand I think the robot just tried to flirt with Ethan as he went to work. Alrighty then! Well, I suppose that's some creativity right there on Buckley's part, I don't even think Wotch has touched upon robo-fucking before.
The funny part about this? Ethan's excuses, as we go on, are "call and say my guinea pig died, or the lawn's on fire or something". I'm pretty sure, and maybe this is just trying to use futile logic once more, that the boss would just say "Ethan, you murder small fuzzy things/burn down someone else's property/assault an innocent customer every week. Get back to work."
And at two minutes in? Intro theme and montage. Well, at least it means the rest of the episode will be more brief.
Act two begins with Ethan smashing boxes. Now, this just hit me, thinking about it. Let me paint you a picture.
Think of any time you've read CAD. Odds are you have, even briefly, if you're reading these reviews. Can you conjure up a mental image of any single non-castmember who wasn't portrayed as a blithering idiot? No? Okay then. Let's go a step further. How many of them were portrayed this way in the following fashion: "I do not know about games/computers, therefore I am going to spout the most horrible strawman dialogue ever." I'm willing to bet it's just about all of them, yes?
So it hit me, thinking about that: Ethan is an alternate-universe Dominic Deegan. Seriously, match it up. It works. Ethan is Dominic, Lilah is whatever the orc's name was (one's a social misfit for having tusks that look identical to every other person's mouth in the comic, the other because she plays games but look identical to everyone else in the comic), let's make Lucas the well-meaning but constant-fuckup brother Gregory, and for completion, the robot can be the cat, both have the same personality ("I rely on you, the main character, for everything I need, but I will continue to be sassy without ever feeling consequence because everyone is verbally abused by housepets in this world"). Ethan's boss can be the mayor of Whateverthefuck Town, a puppet leader, bowing to the whims of Ethanic, and at some later point, I can go back and make more of these connections, because I really want to finish this up and go play Persona.
The destruction continues for no real reason, and so goes the plot of the episode with it. I'm starting to rethink my assessment of the Ethanic theory, mostly because I think Deegan caused less property damage in about 50 wizard duels. (More casualties, yes, but less property damage.)
Thankfully, the boss comes up! Now he'll be fired, he's doing this right in front of the guy, in the middle of the store! (Seriously, couldn't even draw a stockroom or something, man? Good god.)
No. He's telling everyone he'll be "in the back" (see? there IS a back room!), doing paperwork. The funny thing is, he points to the right when he says "in the back", the same direction every customer, employee, and misfit who ENTERS is shown coming from. I'll just pretend he's heading into the alley outside with the intention of peddling cocaine to minors. Sadly, this means Ethan is in charge... and that means Ethan makes this face:
Yeah. Um. I can see why the kids would take the back alley over that. (And oddly enough, when I made the joke about Ethan spending all day with that face earlier? I had no idea this gag was coming. I find myself saddened that I can predict such hack-work in advance.)
Something I didn't see coming: "I'll make you proud, boss!" "No... you won't."
Also of note, since I just caught it: there is a register behind the counter now. Weird. I'm starting to think more and more the first episode was just thrown together and a wee bit more work was added to this one. We'll see if it keeps up.
Nope. Nope, that all went out the window the instant we added a horribly-recorded hillbilly accent to a customer. Sorry, no dice. Dude looks a lot like Weedmaster P, though.
So, recall when I said the story for this episode is "Ethan is going to fake a crisis to go home early"? That went out the window right about here:
Frankly? I'm just going to screencap the rest of this episode. Words cannot do this justice, and keep in mind each of these shots is a ~10 second scene to themselves.
(Okay, I have to say it, because I have never used the term before and this is possibly the most apt time ever: that is some serious rapeface going on right there.)
And for one last kick in the pants: the last line in the episode is a loud and clear "fuck". I will never let that missing "bitch" go.
10 comments:
Wow. You actually did another one of these? How much of a masochist are you?
Either way, keep up the good work - and, if you'll forgive me for asking, why the fuck is there a penguin in that screencap with the robot?
There isn't a single reason, that I saw, for the penguin to be in there. It's just a scene of the robot and penguin hula dancing.
As for the masochism thing: I've long been proud of my ability to withstand terrible films and the like. I own a non-MST3K copy of Manos: The Hands of Fate, I'll play almost any horrible game to completion, I've even listened to some of the worst music that ever existed.
This series, in spite of all that, makes me cringe. At least the other things TRIED to make sense. I keep having this irrational fear that Chef Brian will pop up for an entire episode.
When I first met Tim, all I knew about him was that he was some dude who did a gaming comic and there was often some kinda drama centered around it or him. I avoid people like that. Then we bumped into each other at Connecticon one year, ended up hanging out most of the weekend through circumstance, and I found out that Tim's a very likeable guy.
Just as with anyone else, if your base assumption is, "This guy's an asshole," it's going to be very simple to justify to yourself how almost anything he does proves that he's an asshole. Example: when he supported Child's Play, people called him a shithead for copying Penny Arcade. So the next year he supported a different charity and people called him a shithead for not supporting Child's Play. I mean, what?
People can not like his comic and that's fine. Many people don't like my comic. Whoopie. But this obsession with finding reasons to hate Tim personally is just sad. He's no more flawed than anyone else here. The only difference is that everything you do or say isn't scrutinized through a lens of "Look at that asshole, he's being such an asshole," by thousands of people who don't know anything about you who are obsessed with making sure they think you're an asshole.
And, for god's sake, it's wikipedia. The thing is basically a joke.
Fletcher, I hate to tell you this, but there will be a Chef Brian episode. He had a weird accent, as I recall. Also, your masochism is nothing short oif astounding. I myself gave in at epsidoe 8 or 9...shortly after the power went out and Ethan starting acting like a stereotypical tribesman and trying to "preserve the great tradition of gaming" or some shit.
Kurosen: I'll be the first to admit I've never met the guy. But on the other hand, that means I have to go exclusively by how he portrays himself online, and for as nice of a guy as he is in person? He's the sort of person who'll throw a tantrum online where there are no repercussions, and destroy all the evidence he can.
I'm not going out of my way to hate on the man everywhere. Hell, in this update, I conceded the point on a few things I was informed of about him, such as the fact that he was as disappointed in the animation quality as others. He seems like a prima donna, is all, and since I've no plans to take a trip to meet a man whose portrayal I've seen is unpleasant, I may never get to see the tender side you did. I'm sorry.
anonymous: There aren't enough "fuck"s in the world to convey my hate for the thought of an entire Chef Brian episode.
Blindferret did some sort of animation for "Looking for Group" that appears to be animated better than this "cartoon" and had a voice actor who was not horribly offensive.
Then again, comparing the two products it's not hard to see why their work here might suck a wee bit more.
On an unrelated note, I hope you bought the guide for Persona. Just saying.
On the plus side, Chef Brian isn't the ENTIRE episode, just part of it. On the down side, the "Players" make up part of the rest, along with a weird and pointless bit regarding handhelds.
The guy with the 'Oh Tim is a nice guy' copy pastes that story everywhere someone has a problem with Ol' Tim, so I have reason to believe its pretty fake, like what kind of nice guy threatens to sue a fourteen year old over a HOMAGE!?
Also, I think the series is so shitty compared to other BlindFerret productions because Tim probably paid like shit and annoyed them too much, look at LFG and LICD , also PvP: The Animated Series, they all seem to be animated very well, and if you look at the PvP Trailers, the voice acting isn't bad!
I like Ctrl+Alt+Delete and while I would never pay for this stuff, it's pretty prime for web based stuff. I agree though, anyone who payed for this was phaqued up the nose, it isn't THAT kind of good. Yes ethen is a random grab bag of neurosise and mental delusions, but thats what his character IS. Chef brian is complete nonsense, and that is what that 'character' IS. If you don't like nonesens then fine, but nonsense is what this show IS
Anonymous replying to Kurosen, you are aware that Kurosen is the creator of 8 Bit Theatre?
Not that it's very relavant, but he's an accomplished and talented (much more so than Tim Buckley) cartoonist.
Anyway, TIm Buckley might be a nice guy IRL. But he's not a great guy online. How people behave is often very different depending on whether its online or IRL. And since I certainly dont know Tim Buckley IRL, I just strongly dislike him on the internet. Maybe I would like him in person, but the way he presents himself online is still very unlikeable.
Post a Comment