When I was a kid, I usually felt overjoyed to spend every weekend watching Nicktoons. Whether at home with my mom and family or spending weekends with my dad, one constant presence was those 30-minute adventures--and misadventures--with our favorite shows: Rugrats, SpongeBob, Rocko's Modern Life, The Angry Beavers, Ren & Stimpy, KaBlam, Fairly OddParents, Jimmy Neutron, ChalkZone, Avatar: The Last Airbender--and a few others during Nick's Golden and Silver Eras. They were all perfect viewings for me and my siblings during childhood, and can still great views on TeenNick during The Splat--uhh, NickSplat (sigh).
Hell, even the name Nicktoons was something special. It's as if it's something special and completely different from other networks' animated offerings.
"It's not cartoons, it's Nicktoons."
Geddit?? Because...it's like HBO?? You know..."It's not TV"? And both are different entities??? *cough* Anyway...
Nowadays, Nickelodeon has become a very crap network with original shows (both animated AND live-action) that are just obnoxiously unfunny, horrifying terrible and yet discerningly popular. Almost none of the shows on the channel have anything of value, worth, quality and watchability. And yet millions watch them.
Now, don't get me wrong: Nick also has some really awesome Nicktoons today, too. Harvey Beaks, The Legend of Korra, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a few others I can't remember--because I really don't watch the network anymore--are examples of Nick still having faith in themselves to air more-than-decent cartoons, and us having enough faith in them for making such programs.
This one I'm discussing today isn't one of them. ...I think.
It's Pig Goat Banana Cricket. (...why?)
This series, which premiered on July 18, 2015, created by Dave Cooper and Johnny Ryan, is based on a comic published by Nickelodeon Magazine (remember that? good times.) and developed from a short clip by animator Nick Cross on YouTube from 2012 -- called Pig Goat Banana Mantis!
(I don't know which animation is more attrocious--
PGBCricket or PGBMantis? It's more or less a tossup for me.)
Now, the reason for the difference between names is because, after it got picked up by Nick, the name had to be changed--along with the fourth-in-line character. That's thanks to another character on another Nicktoon that has the same name (and species): Mantis from the aforementioned Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness. So the name (and species) was changed to Cricket.
It's pathetic that Nick continues to go to the Internet for fresh new content. Sure, other networks do it too, as video sites such as YouTube have become perfect places for TV show pilots and short films, in the hopes of a network to take interest and pick it up for something more.
But when Nick does it, it's absolutely fucking shameless.
AwesomenessTV, ReactToThat and Breadwinners are perfect examples.
But...does it matter?
This show is kinda gross.
The animation is disgusting.
The title sequence alone had me coming close to upchucking. There's always close-ups that are insanely gross, and--well, every almost every shot is kinda gross. Even when nothing gross is happening, despite being intentional, it still looks sloppy and unappealing. One of the main culprits of this is anything that comes out of your head--snot and pus, along with other gross things that can come out of you. Understandably, this can have appeal to anyone. I'm not usually one of them, so I'll give it a little pass.
-Pig is an idiot with an obsession with pickles
-Goat is a sweet and cheerful singing hopeful...and is also probably bipolar
-Banana is an asshole with a love for video games and food, and
-Cricket is a crazy good mad scientist...and target for bullcrap
The worst of the bunch is Pig. I hate slow-minded characters and he is one of them. He's not as bad as other dumb Nick characters like Cosmo and Patrick (remember-they're the worst), but I still can't stand his failure to grasp basic thought and cognitive speech.
And one thing I can't stand about Cricket is that he's the show's Chew Toy. he gets treated like crap a lot, and is the basis for jokes like this. It's annoying and serves no purpose. I can take a few Butt Monkey jokes in a show--maybe even enjoy them. But seeing either so many little jokes or a few big ones in every episode (maybe even one) is enough to piss me off. Even if I hate a character, that is too much to deserve this treatment.
While I don't love these characters (I damn sure don't identify with them either), I actually don't hate them either. While they have tics that will get on my nerves, there is something that still draws me to them.
It has to be the actors voicing them--
Matt L. Jones as Pig
Candi Milo as Goat
Thomas F. Wilson as Banana
and Paul Rugg as Cricket
--that make me like them more than I thought. Yeah, that's it. Well, one of them.
These actors really bring these characters to life, and give them a lot of personality, even if a couple layers of them don't well with me. This has to be one of my favorite elements of this series. So it doesn't surprise me much that the voice of Dexter, Snap and Madame Foster; that guy from Mom and the voice of Hector; Biff Tannen himself; and the voice of frickin' Freakazoid! make up one of the series' best parts.
Somehow, despite the many examples of gross humor displayed here, this is actually kinda tame. Sure, it comes at you--and you will experience a degree of nausea, but sometimes, it doesn't make me groan. All I can do is react with a little indifference and groan a little. Don't know why, but that's all I get from it. And it's kinda scary.
Another thing I kinda really like about Pig Goat Banana Cricket (ugh) is this little format style each and every episode. Each of the four titular main characters get an act of each episode to him/her-self, bookmarked by one of their names popping up in an graphic frame--with the name shouted by a random group of kids as heard in the title sequence. Also--like shows like Fosters, Gravity Falls and both Avatar series--each episode follows one story, instead of two in a two-shorts format.
I really like this, as I've never seen something like this in animation before, and is utilized very well. So much so, it makes me wonder why I'm still into this series when I should hate it like everyone else.
And speaking of not really hating it when I should, the humor isn't that baseless either. I don't rage as much as I do with any joke by Cosmo or Mikey from TMNT or any other character from The Sponge, and I do find some jokes funny.
Also, despite the tics of each character that might annoy me, all of the titular characters aren't really annoying themselves most of the time. They're actually better-written than most characters on some other Nicktoons.
In short...Pig Goat Banana Cricket isn't that bad of a Nicktoon. It's obnoxiously disgusting and it's pretty irritating too. ...And at times, pretty good and funny. It's not as bad as most people make it out to be. And that's it.
So...if you want, to curb your interest, please check it out. And if you still don't like it, that's fine. It's not a great Nicktoon, but in my opinion, it's one of the better Nicktoons of the decade on the negative side of the spectrum.
Thanks a lot guys, for checking out another Surprise Review.
I'm Andrew, and I'll see you again soon.
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