'Superjail' on Cartoon Network, and 'The Life & Times of Tim' on HBO
TELEVISION REVIEW
Violent? Yup. Profane? You bet. One thing's for sure: Keep the kids away from these animated series.
There are cartoons and then there are cartoons. Some are the kind that, if not always made specifically for children, are nevertheless child-friendly: This might include anything from "Bugs Bunny" to the "The Simpsons" and, depending on the household, even "South Park." And then there are cartoons that should be kept as out of reach from the kids as blowtorches, Scotch and Hustler.
Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim has become almost synonymous with new-generation, not-for-tots TV animation. Its latest offering is a bloody psychedelic romp called “Superjail.” The series, which premieres Sunday, seems tailored for the sort of people who laughed their way through "Saw." Awash in decapitation, evisceration, mutilation and many other unsavory things ending in "-ation," it's "The Itchy & Scratchy Show" stretched out to half an hour, on acid. Fans of CN's gory "Metalocalypse" will know where they are.
It is set in a huge, island prison staffed by the Warden, a dandy in a top hat and bow tie (voiced by David Wain, of the diverting Web series “Wainy Days”); his large-headed assistant Jared, a recovering alcoholic haunted by talking bottles; steroidal guard Alice, on whom the Warden unrequitedly dotes; and a robot enforcer. There is a mysterious pair of twins who may or may not be prisoners, but whose ability to teleport makes that question moot. They are all basically engines for havoc.
Co-creators Christy Karacas and Stephen Warbrick were already known for their short “Barfight,” which, broadly speaking, is restaged here, in Superjail's Superbar. (Third co-creator Ben Gruber wrote for "Speed Racer: The Next Generation," and Augenblick Studios, which produces the show, was responsible also for the cartoon elements of the transgressive kids' show parody, "Wonder Showzen.") The look of the show -- which is Baroque and complicated and hard to take in at a single viewing -- owes something to underground comics. I thought of Kim Deitch, Suehiro Maruo, S. Clay Wilson and, most of all, Tony Millionaire, whose own "Drinky Crow" has also been made into a Cartoon Network pilot. The violence is not exactly my speed, but the show is made with a bold assurance, and as a thing of color and motion it has a certain weird beauty. It takes full advantage of its being a cartoon: It realizes the impossible.
