The Emmys are just around the corner and everybody is talking about what television dramas and comedies should win an Emmy. Everybody wants to debate which actors and actresses will win an Emmy. Let’s put all those categories aside though and instead take a look at who should win the Emmy in the category of Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour).
The Emmy in Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) is awarded to one particular episode with each of these shows being represented: Avatar: The Last Airbender and Spongebob Squarepants from Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken, Comedy Central’s South Park and Fox’s The Simpsons.
This Emmy should go to Robot Chicken. Robot Chicken is easily the most unique of the five Emmy nominees. Unlike the others, Robot Chicken is a stop animation television program so it looks completely different that the other four Emmy nominees. Robot Chicken is also like a sketch comedy show with several shorts rather than one ongoing plot. The different sketches could give Robot Chicken the advantage in this Emmy category or it also could be a disadvantage.
The positive is that if the episode submitted for the other shows in this category aren’t good then obviously the Emmy voters aren’t going to like any of it. With a sketch comedy program it’s possible for the Emmy voters to not like a particular sketch, but like the show as a whole because of the other sketches. It could also hurt Robot Chicken’s chances of an Emmy though because comedy is very objective and when you have a program with six or seven sketches not everybody is going to agree on how many of them are good.
The episode of Robot Chicken that was submitted for this Emmy is called “Lust for Puppets.” It’s a pretty strong episode with two out of the three main sketches being really good.
The first is a take on Calvin and Hobbes in which Calvin’s parents are very disturbed that thinks his stuffed tiger is real. Eventually Calvin has to see a psychiatrist and when he still thinks his stuffed tiger is real he is given medicine and shock therapy. Eventually Hobbes convinces Calvin that he must kill his parents so that he can be free and Calvin ends up in a straight jacket when nobody that Hobbes was the one that killed his parents.
The second sketch that had me laughing in this episode was when the Mario Brothers take a wrong turn and end up in Vice City, the city in which Grand Theft Auto takes place. Mario injures himself when he tries to break bricks by ramming into them to find that Vice City’s bricks don’t break as easily. Then when Luigi stomps on a real turtle, thinking it’s one of Koopa’s minions, the police come after Mario and Luigi. Mario gets shot and needs to recharge so a prostitute directs Mario to where he can find a mushroom. Mushrooms in Vice City don’t have the same affect as they do where Mario is from though and Mario begins to see giant coins everywhere. Mario drives his car into the large coins not realizing that they are actually people he is running over. The sketch ends when the military are brought in and they have Mario and Luigi cornered, but Mario doesn’t go down without a fight.
The Calvin and Hobbes sketch should be funny to anybody with a sense of humor and sadly if Calvin really existed that sketch wouldn’t be far from the truth. The only problem will be that the Mario and Luigi sketch will not be easy to understand unless you know something about Mario and Grand Theft Auto and I’m not sure the Emmy voters will.
Like everybody else in the world I love Spongebob Squarepants, but he just can’t compare to a Calvin & Hobbes and Mario Brothers episode of Robot Chicken. Avatar: The Last Airbender isn’t horrible, which is saying something since I admittedly don’t like animes and Avatar is certainly influenced by them. Even the biggest Simpsons fan will tell you that show hasn’t been good in many seasons and South Park, like HBO and Showtime shows, get too much recognition simply because they are “edgy” because they make fun of people and swear. Robot Chicken is definitely the strongest Emmy nominee in this category.
Reference:
- Calvin & Hobbes sketch – www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCvdADtr_hk
