History - er, histery, er . . histeria.
It's frightening to think kids might actually consider a stand-up comic's take on historical events as historical. It's a broad humor show - and nothing more. History is only history if it can be collapsed into a stand-up routine. That's not history. That's a joke - stale like a joke, offensive like some jokes, not always so perceptive, like some jokes, and just wrong, like many jokes. That's . . Histeria, the television show.
It's quick-cut, faced paced, like any old WB cartoon from the theatrical trailer days. The road runner is up again, and off. The coyote runs into yet another mountainside with the tunnel painted on it. Yuck, and hy-hyuck, once more. That's Histeria, with pretensions to being something more.
At best, it succeeds not as history - at best a sort of strangled, watered down, out of context and awfully politically correct history (and that's not history) - but as a commentary on current trends and issues. Perhaps the folks at this show would hold the old various Jay Ward cartoons in contempt, for the poor animation. But Histeria is most hysterically funny when it calls upon the adult audience to pick up such an 'inside' reference, as was the stock in trade of the old Jay Ward shows.
Histeria tries to be 'smart' in that way. And sometimes it succeeds. But how smart, really, can an overtly politically correct cartoon stand-up routine really be when it has aspirations to be part of some 'learning channel'?
It's frightening to think kids might actually consider a stand-up comic's take on historical events as historical. It's a broad humor show - and nothing more. History is only history if it can be collapsed into a stand-up routine. That's not history. That's a joke - stale like a joke, offensive like some jokes, not always so perceptive, like some jokes, and just wrong, like many jokes. That's . . Histeria, the television show.
It's quick-cut, faced paced, like any old WB cartoon from the theatrical trailer days. The road runner is up again, and off. The coyote runs into yet another mountainside with the tunnel painted on it. Yuck, and hy-hyuck, once more. That's Histeria, with pretensions to being something more.
At best, it succeeds not as history - at best a sort of strangled, watered down, out of context and awfully politically correct history (and that's not history) - but as a commentary on current trends and issues. Perhaps the folks at this show would hold the old various Jay Ward cartoons in contempt, for the poor animation. But Histeria is most hysterically funny when it calls upon the adult audience to pick up such an 'inside' reference, as was the stock in trade of the old Jay Ward shows.
Histeria tries to be 'smart' in that way. And sometimes it succeeds. But how smart, really, can an overtly politically correct cartoon stand-up routine really be when it has aspirations to be part of some 'learning channel'?