CRITICAL MASS Review: Minoriteam

Minoriteam Is a Major Hit

Racial and cultural stereotype is an elephant in my psychological living room. My reaction can run the gamut from hyenic laughter to shameful embarrassment. This power to both amuse and discomfit is born of two fundamental truths: One, I fear that when I classify individuals by their ancestry, I diminish myself. Two, I can’t stop doing number one. Am I defective? No, just human. Generalization is a survival mechanism evolved over millions of years; the notion that I can simply banish it with open-mindedness is wishful thinking. After watching Minoriteam, I’ve decided to just enjoy it. Minoriteam doesn’t challenge ethnic stereotypes, it revels in them, choosing to embrace cultural eccentricity rather than ignore it.

Our diverse team of superheroes is led by Asian superintellect Dr. Wang, a man who brings rice to a barbecue and whose alter ego runs a laundry where he monitors world events on a bank of screens cleverly disguised as dryers. His followers include the money-loving Jewcano (possessing all the powers of the Jewish faith… and a Volcano!); Non-Stop, a convenience-store-owning, carpet-riding Indian (not the American kind); El Jefe, a weed-whacker-wielding, burrito-loving Mexican; and Fasto, the fastest man ever; so fast he can satisfy a roomful of evil Thai Hookers on short notice without rearranging his schedule. (Did I mention he’s Black?)

In the episode I saw entitled Illegal Aliens, White Shadow, an evil racist organization, has decided to eliminate Minoriteam once and for all by paying aliens (the space kind) to abduct them and take them to their home world. Once arrived, the aliens inform our heroes that they are there illegally and must endure a series of deadly challenges to be allowed to stay (as slaves, of course). Each of our ethnic champions faces his nemesis. Jewcano is tempted by a killer nickel, while Fasto comes face-to-face with his angry Mama. When El Jefe’s head is turned by a giant pimped-out Cadillac with horns (which he bullfights), Wang comes to the rescue, wrecking the automotive monster with his Asian driving skills. Working together, Minoriteam wins, but they still face the bleak prospect of being second-class citizens on an alien world.

Fortunately, the members of White Shadow have discovered that with Minoriteam gone, they have nothing to do except play Racist Charades, Racist Scrabble, and Racist Monopoly. Apparently, being a racist is no fun without minorities. So just when all appears lost for our super band, guess what… It’s White Shadow to the rescue, scooping up Minoriteam and returning them to Earth before they can be enslaved.

Minoriteam is rude, crude, and politically incorrect, not to mention poorly animated, but at its core lies a message: Ethnic character is cause for celebration, not shame, and a racist is nothing without someone to hate.

Reviewed by -

The Critical Masster

for

cartoonmogul.com

MORAL OREL

January 22 is Day of Reckoning for New Adult Swim Series Moral Orel
New Stop-Motion Series from Dino Stamatopoulos to Air Sundays at 12 Midnight (ET, PT)

In Moral Orel, a new Adult Swim series from Dino Stamatopoulous, Orel just wanted to do good. The new 15 minute stop-motion animated series makes its debut on Sunday, Jan. 22 at 12 midnight (ET,PT).

Orel is an 11-year-old boy who loves church. His unbridled enthusiam for piousness and his misinterpretations of religious morals often lead to disastrous results, including self-mutilation and crack addiction. No matter how much trouble he gets into, his reverence always keeps him cheery.

Stamatopoulos is a former writer for Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the acclaimed sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David. He also has contributed to the Adult Swim show Tom Goes to The Mayor, Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse and The Ben Stiller Show.

All episodes will air Sundays at 12 midnight (ET, PT) on Cartoon Network. In the premiere episode, "The Greatest Gift," Orel takes righteous action when he concludes that everyone buried in the town's cemetery is rejecting God's greatest gift, life.

CRITICAL MASS Review:

Moral Orel Is a Slice of Heaven

Though I was raised an agnostic Jew, one of my clearest childhood memories is tuning in every Sunday morning to watch Davey and Goliath, the Claymation adventures of an Evangelical Christian boy and his Evangelical Christian dog, who each week faced a new moral dilemma, and with the guidance of caring family and clergy, always learned a valuable life lesson. Somehow, despite their best efforts, I remained both agnostic and Jewish (an amazing feat in its own right), but if recollection serves, the show focused more on building character than saving souls. Paradoxically, though produced over forty years ago, Davey and Goliath pitched a more enlightened Christianity than today’s popular fundamentalist brand, which has shifted its focus from being virtuous to being right.

Well, who better to spotlight these shortcomings than a new generation of Claymation protagonists? Exit Davey; enter Moral Orel, a well-intentioned lad whose highest ambition is to be a good Christian. In the episode I saw, entitled God’s Greatest Gift, Orel takes Reverend Putty’s Sunday sermon a bit too much to heart. Life, the reverend explains, is God’s greatest gift, and to reject that gift under any circumstance is a sin. Orel ponders this point on his way home from Church, despite his best pal Joey’s admonition that “you’re not supposed to think when it comes to God and faith.” As they cut through the cemetery, Joey wonders if it owes its lush greenery to the fact that “dead people make such good fertilizer.”

“Maybe,” muses Orel, “but they sure make bad Christians.” The dead, you see, have rejected God’s gift of life and are spitting in His face just by being dead. Maybe God can suffer this insult, but Orel cannot. He heads straight for the school library, where our good Christian librarian, Miss Censoredall, is culling special books from the library’s collection for burning.

“Are they special because they teach us the most?” asks Joey.

“Yes,” she replies. “In fact, they teach us too much.”

Even the Bible is slated for incineration, though we are quickly reassured that it’s “only the Jewish parts.”

Among these condemned works, Orel finds Necronomicon, the book that will allow him to raise the dead and put a stop to their sinful rejection of life.

“That doesn’t sound very Protestant,” worries Joey, as Orel incants a satanic ritual over his just-dug-up grandfather.

Orel’s common-sense reply? “Well, at least it’s not Catholic.”

The biggest problem posed by the soon-to-be undead is their smell, which Orel and Joey try to solve by stripping them of their stinky clothes and reviving them au natural.
Long story short, the dead rise and soon roam the streets naked, eating the brains of the living: not quite what Orel intended. Dad catches wind of what Orel has done, and realizes that Orel’s misapprehensions can only be resolved in the forum of a father-son chat in his study. Dad explains to Orel that by undressing the dead and calling them back to life, he has violated the eleventh commandment, which prohibits nudity, and that he can only make things right by providing all the undead with suitable clothing so that they can be decent as they gorge themselves on brains.

“I just wanted to be good so you could love me more than you do now,” Orel tells his father.

“Oh, Orel,” Dad replies with a squeeze, “I could never love you more. People only have a certain amount of love in them. But remember, Son, I love you enough.”

Moral Orel is a clever commentary on the current trend toward intolerance masquerading as morality. Religion in America has been co-opted by fundamentalists who use faith to isolate, frighten and misinform. They reject science (unless, of course, they need it) and dismiss any fact contradicting doctrine as a lie planted to destroy faith. Home schooling is strongly recommended. Ignorance, after all, gets its best foothold in a vacuum. Reason itself is deemed sinful. Our friend Orel takes one stab at independent thought, and what is the outcome? Barenaked zombies.

Of course, the above would mean nothing, if not for Moral Orel’s single, most redeeming virtue. It is truly goddamn funny.

Moral Orel airs on the Cartoon Network Sundays at 12 midnight (ET, PT).

Reviewed by -
The Critical Masster
for
cartoonmogul.com