Shucks-howdy folks! The Cuphead Show released a couple days ago on Netflix. Your favourite Poki-Curious Anti-corporate non-sequitur-dispensary with a minor in film is going to review it!
The show follows a series of episodic (with the exception of the two-episode long Sweater Saga and the finale’s cliffhanger) farcical adventures, usually climaxing with a cheeky punchline, solution to a plot-specific obstacle or epic failure. Very evergreen and an entertaining romp even if you haven’t played the game.
The animation is consistently creative and dripping with clever physical comedy (just as well, since the writing can be hit-or-miss at times)! Seeing a modern take on old-school slapstick seemingly influenced by the likes of Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry is a breath of fresh air.
That aforementioned Sweater Arc and the show’s Devil in general are also amazing. I mean, he opened with a villain song about how he loves taking candy from sentient sandwich-toddlers, how can I not love this!? Bravo to Luke Millington-Drake (Professional Badass Name-Haver and Actor) for a great performance! His Devil also sounds a HELL of a lot like Kenneth Williams, which I personally find hilarious.
Light Spoilers Beyond This Point!
The Bad Batch: First on the chopping block is Baby Bottle. The mildly twisty formula of the baby secretly being a chaotic-evil troglodyte didn’t hit hard for me till the absurdity of the pranks started escelating to more extreme forms of domestic anarchy. Dirt Nap and Handle With Care also have similar issues, largely being somewhat bland with a few great jokes scattered between them. And more generally, the character Henchman (extremely creative name, I know) is literally cringe-incarnate and the show would be better off without him!
Look How They Massacred My Dice: I’m a pretty big fan of King Dice: Cool design, great theme song, the works. Heck, his episode is even one of the best in the show! That said, his characterization felt a little too similar (personality-wise) to the Devil. Would have been interesting to have one of the two be the other’s competent straight man rather than both being overconfident punching bags that get taken down a peg by the end of an episode.
Cliffhangers and Theories! Chalice shows up in the last episode and is built up pretty well as an interesting character, think a street-smart hybrid of Fred Astaire (because tap-dancing) and Karl Marx (she literally redistributed the hot dogs).
And not to turn this into a Hello Future Me video, but she also contributes to the world-building in an interesting way by using a kind of ghost form! We know ghosts exist thanks to the ironically-named “Ghosts Ain’t Real” episode, so there’s a kind of soft-magic implication that ghost forms are a kind of learnable skill. Obviously the show doesn’t NEED to go into the cartoon’s internal logic of ghosts and souls unless season 2 has a Danny Phantom parody episode, but still an interesting thought for any theorists in the audience- LIKE ME!
Overall? Pretty decent show with above-average animation and about-average everything else. I imagine your enjoyment may also depend on your tolerance for mascots with high-pitched Brooklyn accents; I found them pretty funny, though I’ll admit part of that is because a friend of mine loves doing funny impressions of an industrial-era factory worker who regularly threatens to break the boss’s kneecaps if poor working conditions aren’t addressed… On the offhand my current or future employers are reading this, don’t worry, you’re completely safe!
Product Poems:
Apex Legends. Cokemilk Champions! Racing too? Hell yeah bro!
Gran Turismo 7. Vrewm. Shooty shooty bang-bang? Doom
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