TV Review: "Allen Gregory"

The most fascinating thing about the advance hate radiating from detractors of Fox's new animated show, Allen Gregory, is how it centers around the main characters being "unlikable." Which of course they are. This is Fox. Excuse me, FOX. Who wants to be likable? Seth MacFarlane now has three shows in the Animation Domination block, one of which features a "funny" rapist, one which features a racist redneck, and one of which, by its own admission, features an alien who cracks wise like Paul Lynde and cracks out like Andy Dick. So... really? The gay billionaire and his snooty, micromanaging son? Offensive?

All these things can be funny, when handled correctly, and usually on FOX they are -- when they occasionally falter, like Family Guy making fun of stroke victims, we understand they're erring on the side of, well, whatever a lack of caution is. They're supposed to shock us. It's Sunday night, we have to go to work in about ten hours, and a whole afternoon of football has gouged a migraine right into the middle of our head. We need some crazy people doing some crazy shit.

Allen Gregory will more than likely be rejected by FOX viewers any damn way, but not because it's too rude, God no. It's too urbane. Not for nothing did creator (and voice of the titular character) Jonah Hill premiere this (wonderfully pretentious) baby at Georgia Tech; it's clearly the network's attempt at working in its first [adult swim] cartoon, aiming for collegiates by co-opting the cool nerd who helped get them through high school. Crazy shit happens in Gregory, just like on any FOX show, but here it's, dare I say, cerebral: no endless callbacks to Facts of Life here, Dad, the jokes come in quick, low, and from the outside. For example: to break difficult news to Allen, his folks don't get him a dog or something; they tell him he won a Tony.

That difficult news: Gregory, in the show's main conceit, is an ascot-wearing little prick forced to go to public school. Standard fish-out-of-water stuff. Yet Allen has two daddies -- and as we find out, one of them is actually straight, merely drawn in to this world by Daddy's spending power. He's gay for the pay, and while the details are intriguingly vague, it's clear he's a business acquisition. Dad, it turns out, is every bit as prickly as (and strikingly similar to) [as] mainstay Jonas Venture. But while the Venture Bros. patriarch is a case study in the decline of American dominance (no, seriously), Mr. Gregory is the soul of modern American winning: he's utterly ruthless, emotionless, and shallow.

So, no  you won't be inviting these guys to your party, not even Allen, who's supposed to be having life lessons when the new experience makes him crap his pants (literally), but instead uses the whole incident as an excuse to conquer the school. Clearly they don't understand who he is. In that context, Allen's horrifyingly adorable crush on his much older, much heavier, buzz-cut principal is still wacky for wacky's sake -- again more like [as] than FOX, because it doesn't even pretend to make sense -- but also an indicator of his predatory nature. She runs the place? He must have her.

What this all means is that some of us, especially those who've been watching adult cartoons for years, would rather see unlikable characters with integrity than likable ones that break character all the time. Integrity in this case referring to these assholes' ability to stay true to their particular assholishness. It's not only more honest, it's less condescending -- twentysomethings, naive as they can be, have figured out its idiots like these who run the world, but are still capable of admiring their, dare I say, panache. ("Here's what's currently happening," he tells his new teacher. "You're being difficult. And I see this whole situation going smoother if you cooperate... thanks... you're a China doll.") We want their confidence, but not their sense of entitlement.

Indeed, these characters are already so entrenched that the writers can begin letting them impact their new surroundings. Will Allen learn that public school kids will hate him for acting like a hedge-fund manager in 3rd grade, especially when they realize it's his money that's making him weird? Or will he corrupt the whole educational process with said money, which would be another nice fat topical metaphor to chew on? It'll be interesting to find out... assuming they get the chance, that is. In the end, It's not the moral watchdogs but the Wal-Martians with Stewie stickers on their SUVs who will doom Allen Gregory to nothingness, put off by the glee in which it talks down to them. The rest of us like our jerks straight up; if you prefer to be not quite so dominated by your animation, that's your lookout.