Disenchantment is the latest cartoon from creator Matt Groening (creator of the Simpsons and Futurama). I’m up to about episode five and it’s on Netflix.
The stories center around Princess Bean, a drunken, carousing irresponsible teenager that lives in the fantasy kingdom of Dreamland. She has a personal demon, voiced by Eric Andre and an Elf friend named Elfo voice by Nat Faxon. Bean is voiced by Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson.
It’s okay. I mean, it’s not great yet and hasn’t quite found it’s feet. The first episode wastes a lot of time getting the characters together for the first time, rather than have them already there. This is pretty pointless as the three quickly become the “regulars” on the show, making them feel like they’ve been friends forever. You either have to take advantage of the fact they don’t know each other or save the “origin” story of their friendship for later.
John DiMaggio does a great turn as Bean’s dad, King Zog. You can hear a little of Bender and Jake in his voice. It’s a fun show, but I think part of the other reason it’s sort of all over the map is the setting. The Simpsons and Futurama to a lesser extent are very grounded in reality. The rules of Disenchantment are up in the air. Bean also comes off as unsympathetic as she parties, gets people killed and listens to her personal demon more often than not.
The animation is great and I will say that the show started off a little less slow that Futurama, but unlike Futurama I’m not getting a great sense of the world yet. It may take some time. I don’t know, maybe I have to Binge Watch the rest. Right now I say watch, but so far out of the three, it’s definitely on the bottom. The other two shows had so much to draw upon, I haven’t seen any great parodies in Disenchantment yet, but we’ll see.
I give it a mild thumb up, bros.
