Missing 'Rick and Morty' or 'Bojack'? Try HBO's hysterically offbeat 'Animals'
The need to fill that niche, adult animated show hole in our lives right now is real. And we've got just the cure.
HBO's obscure comedy Animals, currently in its third season, is it's own very unique beast (pun intended). But it shares a lot of DNA with the more known and watched heavy hitters of the adult animated show genre. At the very least, it'll help scratch that itch while we wait until Sept. 14 for Bojack Horseman, and an indefinite amount of time for more Rick and Morty.
Animals first premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival before getting picked up by HBO, but that all sounds a lot more avante-garde than what the show actually is. As the name implies, it takes on the perspectives of different animals and their disparate cultures through a hilariously deadpan approach to comedy.
If you're someone who finds immense joy in the animal gags sprinkled throughout Bojack's ambitiously human storytelling, then this is the show for you.
Animals bears no pretenses about pushing the boundaries of serious storytelling in animation (if anything, it balks at this kind of pretentiousness in general). But it revels in the uncomplicated hilarity of taking animal logic at face value, then it blows that joy up to absurd proportions.
It answers the questions we've all wondered, like: What the fuck does my cat get up to when I'm not around? Well in this show's universe, it's a kinky catnip BDSM sex dungeon, or Godfather-like mafia gang wars.
What these animals get up to is always unexpected, but still a part of you goes, "Yeah. I can totally see why rats would be the stoner crowd."
The DNA Animal shares with Rick and Morty lies in its comedic stylings rather than anything related to subject matter. A huge aspect of what makes Rick and Morty stand out from all other TV comedies, animated or otherwise, is its emphasis on improvisation.
Animated shows generally need to stick pretty strictly to the script for practical reasons. But the dialogue in both Rick and Morty and Animals bears the unmistakable aliveness of spitballing (sometimes literally for Rick), keeping in stutters and mumbles that give the whole thing a decidedly more human vibe -- ironically.
If some regards, Animals takes this even further than Rick and Morty. Like a peak Judd Apatow movie, it's so loose that most of the jokes feel on the cusp of being boring, but it’s the idiosyncrasies that make them iconic. Conversational and organic, the show cares little about polished scripts or traditional joke formulas. And that's why it's great.
Creators Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano almost always voice the main rotating cast of animal characters in each episode. Their effortless chemistry between them is infectious, and the glue that holds the looseness together. They're also clearly the source of the show's oddly congenial brand of nihilism.
Because the show isn't afraid to go to dark places, often unceremoniously killing off characters. But it cuts through that seriousness like a fart at a funeral.
Outside the micro world of the animals' lives, there's a live-action human plot developing throughout the episodes that carries over from season to season. It's mostly background noise, and definitely the weakest part of the comedy.
But in Season 3, the catastrophic consequences of that human subplot gives the animals a fresh new backdrop for their shenanigans.
Again, Animals doesn't bog itself down with many lofty goals. Still, seeing New York through the twisted lens of how it's experienced by the rats, dogs, cats, insect, and pigeons that infest it does provide an unexpected perspective for how the unseen residents of the city make human jungles work for them.
And if none of that is enough to convince you that Animals is worth a shot, just look at this brief, incomplete list of the insanely star-studded list of guests that did think the show is worthwhile: Dan Harmon, RuPaul, Emilia Clarke, Raven-Symoné, John Early, Jenny Slate, Demi Moore, Jessica Chastain, Nick Kroll, Usher, Wanda Sykes, Mindy Kaling, and Jonah Hill.
The names are endless. And the possibilities of the places Animals can go feels endless, too -- both literally and figuratively.
It's cliche to say that New York City is the real main character of any given show or movie. And in the case of Animals, it's not, really. But the main characters of this NYC comedy make you reconsider who the real characters of this absurd city actually are.
Jess is an LA-based culture critic who covers intimacy in the digital age, from sex and relationship to weed and all media (tv, games, film, the web). Previously associate editor at Kill Screen, you can also find her words on Vice, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vox, and others. She is a Brazilian-Swiss American immigrant with a love for all things weird and magical.
