The Little Bush

Took a break from studying to watch some TV. Unfortunately, the only thing on was Lil' Bush. Comedy Central's latest attempt to recapture the South Park lightning.

I don't normally like to judge shows based off of their pilots. They're typically not very indicative of how things can and will go. If you watched the first Seinfeld, for example, you'd have thought Jerry had a wacky neighbor named “Kessler” and there was no one named Elaine and instead the token girl was a waitress, not at Monk's, but someplace else that Jerry and George apparently frequented. But, having watched a bit of the first episode and even some of the mobile phone shorts that predated the series and now being almost forced into watching the latest one, I'm prepared to deliver my verdict:

Lil' Bush. I liked it a lot better when it was live action and called That's My Bush.

Oh snap. But I can't be bothered to come up with anything wittier for this trainwreck of a show. I think the most damning thing about Lil' Bush is that it's stupid. Not stupid as in good, dumb comedy. But just plain dumb. The Bush administration is ripe for parody. It's fertile and frequently visited ground that still has plenty of ground to farm. The 2000 series from the South Park creators, That's My Bush wasn't really so much a parody about the Bushes but about sitcoms in general. Which makes sense since it was developed for either candidate who won that election, a lot of what drove it existed independently from the persona of Bush, that got slapped on later. It was pretty dumb, too. But it was at least smart about it. If it had lasted (It was cancelled in the spring of 2001, not the fall so it's not like the 9/11 deification of Bush was a factor there. It just cost too much when Comedy Central was trimming fat left and right.) I think it would have found some fertile ground in lampooning the Bushies instead of, you know, the wacky neighbor cliché. Lil Bush on the other hand is awful. It has none of the subtlety, none of the grace that's needed for really effective, biting satire. It launches itself after the broadest of targets, misses, lands badly, and flails around on the ground, thrashing about blindly like a fatally wounded animal.

Like I said, sucks.