fezgician

[fezgician]

BIRDGIRL EPISODE 1: "PILOT" (April 4th, 2021)

So, funny story, 21 years ago I was 5 years old watching the beginnings of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. Was I too young for it? Absolutely. But also it was like, the least inappropriate thing on Adult Swim I actively watched all through its run until I was 12 years old, so it's held a special place in my heart ever since.

All of that is to say, having seen that show is kind of unnecessary to understanding this episode. Which I would hope, given this is a spinoff of a show that began 21 years ago, ended officially 14 years ago, and had its last one-off special 3 years ago.

Birdgirl starts us off with Judy Ken Sebben/Birdgirl finishing up her day job, ordering ramen takeout while venting through the call about how her passions are more with her other life as Birdgirl than with her normal life as Judy, which is the perfect set up for the ultimate point of the episode. It then rushes forward into Birdgirl's fast paced action and awkwardness-heavy night, showing how much more excited Judy feels to do that than her lawyer day job. Though it also shows how RECKLESS she is as Birdgirl.

Judy completely ignores the giant signs of her father's death, seemingly out of cluelessness to the audience as its presented.

But longtime watchers of Harvey Birdman will already know he's faked his death multiple times, a point that's brought up when Judy goes to work the next day and is called into the meeting for the CEO Replacement. In which its revealed that her father (who believes Birdgirl and Judy are different people) chose Birdgirl to be the CEO while giving Judy the majority stocks in the company, setting off the real point of the episode, and possibly series: Judy's entire mental disconnect with herself. She feels distraught that her father saw Birdgirl as CEO material and not her more personal, calmer self.

Because she can't bring herself to grieve over her father yet again after the previous times, she goes fully into denial spending more of her time as Birdgirl and neglecting her personal life.

Which brings the concern of the friend she makes with Merideth the Mindtaker, a green telepath played by Negin Farsad.

Merideth is very empathetic despite calling herself "bad at emotions", which might be a side effect of her powers. Speaking of, to make a mental note, I find it refreshing that her powers are treated very intentionally not-invasively as possible, only using them to give therapeutic advice to Judy or physically stopping her to get her to listen. The biggest "misuse" is just her joking to finish Judy's sentences, which while annoying, isn't the same as forcing her way deep into Judy's insecurities she won't admit to herself.

Birdgirl's humor is dry and not scored by music or heavy sounds, aside from the absurdity of Birdgirl's incompetence at fighting crime in denial of her father's death; which is still underplayed compared to other examples I've seen.

The character design feels fitting as a continuation to Harvey Birdman while just being pleasant to look at, while also animating probably better overall than the original or a show with a similar vibe and style like Archer.

I really like how Birdgirl's eyes go from superhero cartoon/comic book white to showing her eyes like a live action adaptation whenever she'll be speaking honestly from the heart while in the mask instead of in denial.

One thing that might become obvious the longer you watch the episode is that, unlike Harvey Birdman, Birdgirl seems like it's not allowed to use Hanna Barbera/MGM/Cartoon Network characters freely, which may explain the abscence of a few old key characters, not showing or mentioning Harvey Birdman, and the fact one of the board members is a cartoon dog that might've been Droopy had they been able to. I don't think this hinders the show at all, but it is noticeable considering the show it spun off from. Might be Warner wanting to keep some characters clean while they try to use them in kid appropriate material like Space Jam: A New Legacy.

Birdgirl is a very calm show, definitely meant for teenagers and older — With the exploration of Judy's personal, mental and emotional struggles brought on by her father's neglect of her when she wasn't being reckless as Birdgirl. However, everything else is very tame; there's fewer than 5 bleeped swears, fewer than 3 mentions of sex and despite there being a people eating machine in this episode, it shows no real gore unlike another show with the same TV-14 Rating.

Birdgirl is for adults not in the sense that it has content inappropriate for children, but in the sense that its story, which seems to be ongoing, deals with issues that are only really relatable to people who are old enough. Despite human waste (heh) being a part of the episode, it doesn't ever feel "immature" in the way that poster child shows like Family Guy or Rick and Morty can feel, or even Tuca and Bertie, which is very mature with an important story, but goes for more crass jokes.

If you're a fan of stories with a woman-centric cast and dry humor, I'd recommend it to you. If you're more into the superhero stuff, I can't say I'd recommend it to you until more episodes have come out for a better gauge of where the show's boundaries will be.

Overall, Birdgirl is an enjoyable superhero empathy ride I hope to see more of and I'm glad I checked out.

[fezgician]

What *is* Adult Western Animation? To a lot of animation fans, and a general audience, it's very often written off as only "raunchy comedy" and being "more immature" than shows aimed at kids and general audiences.

But I don't agree with that assessment. I love all animation, from Stop Motion, to Anime, to CG and 2D from different places, as well as things aimed at wildly different age groups. Dreamworks Trolls World Tour and Tuca and Bertie were some of the most important things that helped me get through my life last year, people are multi-faceted.

I agree with Owen Dennis, creator of Infinity Train that animation can and should be used to tell different kinds of stories. Stories relevent to teens and adults, and in different genre's, not just raunchy comedy.

If I continue writing these reviews, my mission statement is to try to bring sensible discussion to the world of animation aimed at people in high school and into their adulthood, instead of more of the same dismissive view of the entire concept by Invader Zim Fan #764.

[fezgician]

Moved

Moved to poisonbat!