It was a fairly big deal in July 2017 when Netflix announced it had landed Matt Groening’s newest animated series, “Disenchantment.”
After all, Groening created “The Simpsons” — the longest-running animated series in TV history — as well as “Futurama,” which bounced around from 1999 to 2013 (repeats air on Comedy Central). Before “The Simpsons,” Groening made noise with his “Life in Hell” comic strip.
“Disenchantment,” premiering Aug. 17, was billed as “an adult animated comedy fantasy series” but misses its mark, since it’s neither “adult” nor is there much comedy. The 10-episode series will appeal more to a preteen sensibility than to anyone over 14 (there’s implied raunchiness — words like “dong” and a kingdom called “Bentwood”) and it’s got plenty of, well, cartoonish violence a la “Itchy and Scratchy” from “The Simpsons.” What it doesn’t have is the charm or wit of that series — either in its storyline or its characters — and mostly plods along with only the occasional throwaway line eliciting a smile.
What “Disenchantment” does have, however, is a first-rate cast giving it their all to breathe some life into their characters. Abbi Jacobson (“Broad City”) takes the lead role as Bean, a bored, belching, hard-drinking young princess (with buck teeth — a Groening trademark) whose father, King Zog of Dreamland (John DiMaggio), wants to marry her off to seal an alliance with the aforementioned Kingdom of Bentwood. Bean’s sidekicks are her “personal demon,” Luci (Eric Andre) — an equally hard-drinking, wisecracking feline-ish incarnation who’s really not all that bad — and Elfo (Nat Faxon), a good-natured elf who left home against the advice of the village elders. Together, they try to foil Bean’s upcoming nuptials; her first wedding doesn’t go as planned and now she’s been promised to the vain, dimwitted Prince Merkimer (Matt Berry).
Most of the jokes fall flat and seem weirdly dated. One character is dubbed “Slayer of Metallica” and there’s this exchange: “How can we repay you?” “Cash. Leave it on the branch.” A stab at topical commentary involves a “racist antelope” in the Enchanted Forest (“An elf and a human girl? That ain’t right,” he says); Bean, looking for a way to get rid of Prince Merkimer, visits the “Little Seizures Poison Shop.” The smoke from a cannon blast spells out “Mazel Tov.” It’s that kind of humor.
“Disenchantment” compensates for its lackluster writing/originality with its first-rate animation, but that won’t be enough to keep “adult” viewers around very long, given the array of top-notch animated series currently airing (including “The Simpsons” and “Rick and Morty”).
