"The PJs" looks pretty incredible. Its oddly configured characters blend flawlessly with a proportionately scaled environment, creating a bracingly textured, fluid look that legitimately ups the stop-motion ante. That, however, would qualify as the good news. The pilot suffers from scribe Don Beck's punchless opening script that stains all of those trailblazing graphics with a collection of doltish black stereotypes.
The first of Fox’s ballyhooed trio of midseason animated comedies, “The PJs” looks pretty incredible. Its oddly configured characters blend flawlessly with a proportionately scaled environment, creating a bracingly textured, fluid look that legitimately ups the stop-motion ante. Clay-animation vet Will Vinton has outdone himself here in generating a world that gives his original technology the equivalent of a spit-shine, in tandem with his fellow producers (including Eddie Murphy, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer) and a talented group of animators. This is visually bold territory. Kudos all around.
That, however, would qualify as the good news. Here’s the bad: the pilot suffers from scribe Don Beck’s punchless opening script that stains all of those trailblazing graphics with a collection of doltish black stereotypes. None of the characters’ voices are particularly memorable, all of them overwhelmed by painfully hyperactive pacing.
It’s a familiar refrain, really. The only broadcast network primetime animated comedies to understand that visuals embody perhaps 10% of the equation — with writing and execution requiring 90% — have been “The Simpsons” and “King of the Hill.” If you are clever, they will come. If you aren’t, they will not, no matter how spiffy your presentation.
This show features Murphy’s voice as Thurgood Stubbs, the irascible building superintendent of the Hilton-Jacobs Projects (where “PJs” is set).
The dysfunctional bunch also includes Thurgood’s terminally sunny wife Muriel (Loretta Devine); the scamming, stroke-prone grifter Mrs. Avery (Ja’net DuBois); the voodoo-obsessed Haiti Lady (Cheryl Francis Harrington); Muriel’s sex-mad older sister Bebe (Jenifer Lewis); Bebe’s culturally confused Korean husband Jimmy Ho (Michael Paul Chan); precocious 10-year-old Calvin (Crystal Scales); and Sanchez (Pepe Serna), Thurgood’s chess buddy who speaks with the aid of a voice box thanks to the ravages of smoking.
In the opener, everybody basically gets on Thurgood’s bad side all the time. The poor guy gets no respect and probably never will. But it is clear in the kickoff seg that this concept is not aided by the “foamation” gambit. “The PJs” could have been produced as a live-action comedy and been fairly close to identical.
What is the point, then, in all of this visual innovation? Perhaps one of the eight exec producers might have an answer.
Tech credits are superb all around.
The PJs
Fox; Sun. Jan. 10, 8:30 p.m.
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