By Chris Ryall
July 15, 2004
Poor DreamWorks and their Animation Division. About a year ago, I was at the studio, and one of the upcoming projects they were excited about was “the first all-CGI prime-time show,” FATHER OF THE PRIDE, due to air on NBC. Another project they were high on was SHARK SLAYER (since retitled A SHARK’S TALE). The Shark movie was pushed back after Pixar’s similarly underwater FINDING NEMO captured the planet’s imagination. And FATHER OF THE PRIDE, about a family of white lions who work as performers in the Las Vegas act of illusionists Siegfried & Roy? Well, no one was sure what to do with it after one of the white tigers, as Chris Rock says, “didn’t go crazy. No, that tiger went tiger” on Roy Horn.
DreamWorks and NBC were befuddled, but eventually, as Roy survived and started to mend, the decision was made to air the show this fall. So FATHER OF THE PRIDE makes its debut in September, and features some solid voice work from pros like John Goodman, Cheryl Hines, Orlando Bloom and even Carl Reiner. The only problem is, it’s not very good.
Granted, the show is designed to appeal to a younger crowd, the sort of audience who enjoys sub-par CGI animation and voices that don’t align with mouth movements and pedestrian storylines. But thus far, it wouldn’t hurt if a tiger would have gone tiger on the pilot’s script.
Goodman and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM’s Hines, both pleasant, familiar voices, portray Larry and Kate, the lion and lioness parents of a “teenage” lion, Sierra. Also roaming around their house is Kate’s father-in-law, the obnoxious Sarmoit (Carl Reiner). Sarmoit is only there to pop up and tell Larry everything he’s doing wrong as a husband or a parent.
The animals all live behind the MGM, in a hut that looks like a straw version of Fred Flintstone’s house. Their masters, Siegfried & Roy, don’t know they can talk, of course. In fact, they’re too busy preening and being self-absorbed caricatures (purposefully, although the fact that their characters are poking fun at their real-life personas doesn’t really make it any funnier). When we first meet them, Roy is in a tanning booth and Siegfried is being taken in by a 7/11 commercial. The two, voiced by other actors, head to 7/11 for a Slurpee (the 7/11 product placement is incredibly blatant and yet slightly less annoying than it would be in a live-action show simply because the whole store is CGI-animated).
After they leave, their white tigers sit up and grab Roy’s audio diary and start listening. This has a slightly creepy effect, knowing what the white tigers did in real life, but it’s just a quick scene.
The “A” story in this show is the lion parents finding “catnip” hidden under a plant in their daughter’s room. See, for those who don’t get it, “catnip” is a metaphor for “pot,” so the two lions freak out and accuse their daughter of being on drugs. She says she’s not, she says she hates them, that they’re the worst parents ever and….sorry, I nodded off. Something about seeing this exact premise one too many times over the years.
After Larry’s friend Snack (a gopher voiced by Orlando Bloom) makes them feel guilty, they go see an elephant therapist who tells them that ‘nip is a gateway drug, leading to horse tranquilizers and then sleeping darts. Mm-hmm. They head out to a club to look for their daughter. She’s not there, but it gives the animators a chance to animate a bad rave scene, something that never rings true on TV shows, animated or not. Some lion there gives Kate a sausage necklace laced with catnip (bear with me, it’s almost over) and the two end up “high” on the ‘nip in front of their daughter. The daughter accuses them of being hypocrites, Carl Reiner says something snarky and then all is resolved in typical sitcom fashion.
Meanwhile, at 7/11, Siegried is acting flighty, Roy is talking about how he “stole a six-pack” (he pulls up his shirt and shows his abs…now, I know all animated shows seem to over-glorify the celebs they’re portraying but c’mon…these are 60-year-old men. That’s just disturbing.) and both are shown to be wiser than the average person, in their wacky, flamboyant ways. The thing about celebrities who “allow” fun to be poked at them is, it’s always crap. They inevitably end up being shown to be better-looking and wiser than the average bear (or lion). The price you pay for using real names, I guess.
So far, NBC has ordered 13 episodes of the show, and since each episode costs at least $2 million, I wonder if the other 13 scripts that are in development will ever actually be produced. I assume this show will find an audience because kids’ll like the CGI, but this first episode was pretty banal. The vocal talents on the show all deserve more, so let’s hope they get better from here.
NBC’s FATHER OF THE PRIDE debuts this September on Tuesdays at 9 PM.
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