Napoleon Dynamite

This show was just too hip for middle America... It is in fact an edgy, Dadaist style comedy animation show in the style of Futurama and the trippier episodes of The Simpsons.

Netflix should reboot this one. This made my family laugh hard.

Napoleon Dynamite came out in my high school graduation year and I immediately became obsessed with it. Everyone did. For the two years after the movie came out it wasn't out of the ordinary to hear people imitating Napoleon's catch phrase "Idiot!" or use the slow sigh to show they were annoyed. I still have a "Vote for Pedro" sticker on my CD player. It is certainly a movie I will always look back on as a signal of my youth and where I was at that time in my life. When the cartoon Napoleon Dynamite can out, I was so excited I was giddy. Not only was the cartoon just as delightfully random as the movie, but it brought back a lot of old memories from my high school days. It was finally a way to find out what other random excursions Napoleon, Pedro and Deb could get in other than what was in the movie. When I learned that it had been cancelled after only the first season, I was devastated. It was such a slap in the face to learn that they had kept Bob's Burgers and dropped Napoleon Dynamite. Who know's, maybe this show will come back like Family Guy did. I hope so.

Napoleon Dynamite(2011) was actually surprisingly funny. Is it like the movie? Not entirely. One of the things that made the movie hilarious was it's use of realism and lack of bending reality. This on the other hand, is actually using the same brand of humor, but in a different shape. It has the feel of other animated television programs, but still holds that brand of somewhat deadpan, Napoleon Dynamite humor. Though it may focus more on gags somewhat, there still is something for everyone to enjoy. It may not be as high-brow as Bob's Burgers, or as outrageous as Family Guy, it still holds that same key element of the character's goofiness. And that's what the show's key thresh-hold is. A seven out of ten.

I never watched the film (though I might in the near-future) but I think this show is above average. The first few episodes have certainly kept me interested and the plots feel original and creative, with no clichés. The jokes can be funny at times, the writing is consistent, the voice-acting is top-notch, and the animation is high-quality. It probably is a bit too late to make a TV show out of it, because the film was released almost a decade ago. But I'm just looking at it as a TV show in its own right. What's weird though is that the TV show is animated, and that it could've easily been live-action if it wasn't over-the-top at times. It is nice to have something fresh on FOX's Animation Domination lineup of animated shows that is better than the abortion Allen Gregory was. I also think it's just as good as Bob's Burgers. This show should last at least 2 seasons, with plenty of character development along the way, and not have the fate of "Clerks: The Animated Series" (based on the film "Clerks") which was cancelled on ABC after 2 episodes.