Metalocalypse - [Adult Swim], Sundays - time varies, check local listings

Metalocalypse premiered last week, and while the initial buzz is good, according to [Adult Swim], I'm not sure how much I'm going to like it...

I'll try to give you at least a little bit of insight into this dark and mysterious world, as we go along -- a world filled with beer, tacos, beer, soft tacos... but it's really not necessary. It's irreverent enough to be accessible, but it's a little too spasmodic to make sense, even if you are a death metal fan.

And for all the girls my age who are giggling at the mere mention of "death metal" -- and scoffing at your former boyfriend(s) -- I'm glad you all finished college and got your degrees in Psychology... I have a box of abandoned platform shoes, if there are any you want to claim.

Ahem!

Firstly, it is honestly true that you cannot understand any death metal vocals -- it is some kind of law. If you can understand a death metal vocalist, the band is "selling-out" and/or "gay" -- unless they screech like an operatic harpy. I totally don't get it, either -- it's not that I don't love the music or enjoy playing it any less, I just don't always "get" the artists and fans it attracts. But, actually, the original reasoning was to use the voice literally as another instrument, which is how "growling" became a staple of the genre. And a lot of the lyrics aren't even spoken, just slurred. And there is something about it that attracts a lot of Nordic musicians. And Metalocalypse knows this and uses it well, but maybe a little too often, and as a gimmick.

Metalocalypse is [Adult Swim]'s "stab" at spoofing death metal -- and no one is more adept, nor more aware, of such than [Adult Swim]. They threw together four or five Norwegian cats (plus one American drummer with ratty, red hair and a bad attitude) and put them in a grocery store. And you can't understand any of them, and they are all largely clueless offstage, and it's all completely true, and pretty hilarious.

The animation is top-notch and while I originally saw it as totally Venture Bros., after seeing this week's installment, I realize the closer relation to Sealab 2021. Sadly, I'm not a big fan of the latter; Sealab 2021 was just one non-sequitir after another -- it refused storylines and that was it's only joke -- it established characters (Debbie was a slut, Erik Estrada's character was... Mexican), but it was never even half-watchable until The Captain died; it was never that funny a show: it started nowhere, it went nowhere, and it didn't even have the decency to follow-through with that.

Metalocalypse, in its first 15-minute short, started out silly, with inside-jabs at the industry, the bands, and the personalities involved -- but this past week's episode made absolutely no sense (which is fine, if it's funny, but it really wasn't). Of course, series take more time to establish characters, storylines, and other factors, in order to keep viewers interested -- a formula the BBC had worked until it backfired on them, when they cancelled Hex (though I hope they bring it back, since they have reworked it for BBCA, by showing the episodes in a different order which means more viewers may be able to get them to bring it back).

But this is a 15-minute format of stand-alone "adventures," that just don't work like that. And they attempt to get around this by making them complete, stock characters -- not just cartoonish in nature -- to a level so over the top sometimes that they are just incidental to what is going on around them. And nothing is going on around them!

Co-creator, Brendan Smalls', previous project, Home Movies, is the complete antithesis of this formula, and is a much stronger showing. But what I really think is that he's used to working in the 30-minute format, so his stories aren't making it to us in their original form; that is to say that the episodes are being chopped and edited, ad infinitum, to make content. It's the punchline to the joke, "How do you keep a moron in suspense?"

More on this, later.

On the plus side, I love how they are considered Enemy Number One by the state and the Suit listed them by lyric (as per the opening theme ["Pickles, the drummer"]). And I love the scene with the blond stuffing coffee into the toaster -- angry because it didn't work. And the "fat" guy is dead-on accurate ("What about me? I'm the 'fat' one!").

All in all, a very good show, but it might get old pretty quickly for those not "into" the death metal scene. Or beer. And, honestly, unless it works the progression, it doesn't really hold that much interest for me.

Well, I have to pee.