Unless you own cats, the concept behind Netflix’s Exploding Kittens animated series may sound like something out of a crazy comic fantasy. As someone who does, I can say that I’ve simultaneously dubbed my boys perfect angels and demon offspring; in the course of a few minutes, I’ve watched them move from cuddling to fighting to cuddling again. God and the Devil appearing on Earth as two crazy cats is, in my opinion, a tiny exaggeration of what actually happens on a daily basis.
Regretfully, aside from its adorable premise, the animated comedy series doesn’t offer anything more that is surprising. It’s not that they didn’t try. The show throws its characters through fantastical realms and against bizarre monsters, referencing pop culture and sprinkling irreverent gags along the way, in the spirit of Rick & Morty, Futurama, or Big Mouth. Exploding Kittens animated series is rarely irritating, sometimes lovely, and humorous all at once. However, it never quite sets itself apart from the trendiest cartoons of the decade.
| Exploding Kittens animated series |
| Airdate: Friday, July 12 (Netflix) |
| Cast: Tom Ellis, Sasheer Zamata, Suzy Nakamura, Mark Proksch, Ally Maki, Kenny Yates |
| Creators: Shane Kosakowski, Matthew Inman |
We find out early in the nine-part season that the reason these immortals were up here in the first place is that they are both terribly bad at what they do. The board of God (voiced by Tom Ellis, a.k.a. Lucifer from Fox/Netflix’s Lucifer) has mandated that, following several millennia of negligence, God and humanity make a reconciliation. Since Beelzebub (Sasheer Zamata) is the underworld version of a nepo baby who is failing at her job, she has been ordered to “up [her] evil game.” (On the other hand, her late father was revered as the greatest Satan of all time; a former underling remembers him with amazement as “the man who designed the Trader Joe’s parking lot.”).
Even though they sometimes declare war on one another, Godcat and Beelzebub are more alike than they are with the people around them, much as in the end-of-the-world comedy Good Omens.
This show is purportedly adapting Matthew Inman’s card game of the same name, but it has nothing to do with it. However, Inman and co-creator of the series Shane Kosakowski are open to anything that the forces of Hell and Heaven may conjure up, the more bizarre and absurd the better.
Godcat’s primary goal is to strengthen the bonds amongst the eccentric Higgins family. In the half-hour premiere, he tries to do this by making the family smaller and competing against lifelike board game pieces. In other episodes, we find clever girl Greta (Ally Maki) blowing up a unicorn, her aspiring influencer brother Travis (Kenny Yates) running from an alternate reality destroyed by enormous shark dragons, and former Navy SEAL mother Abby (Suzy Nakamura) staking vampire pugs.
Godcat and Beelzebub go to Sea World on one of their outings to give the sea mammals, which are really the damned souls of criminals like Christopher Columbus and the Manson family, a severe talking-to. Amidst all of this, the nerdy big-box manager Marv (Mark Proksch) succeeds in getting himself adopted by his employer in an unplanned balloon pseudo-marriage ceremony. When you think about it, the previous plot makes as much logic as the Devil and God having cats. In a hundred years, I could not have foreseen the latter.
Though the humor that Exploding Kittens animated series mines from them are usually obvious, the stories can be admirably wacky. For example, it’s a nice idea that misbehaving youngsters go to a juvenile Hell called Heck; less so are the circles of Heck, which include attention-seeking trolls and the Presidential Fitness Challenge. And in case you’re wondering if that test is still in existence, it’s common for the program to make outdated references. Digs that seem dated from 2018 are made at Imagine Dragons, Ellen DeGeneres, and “Jefflon Bezmusk”‘s infatuation with phallic spacecraft.
The humor structures itself feel shaky. Every list that is rattled off will almost certainly contain two normal items and a third, more frivolous item (“There are a lot of things humans really frigged up — murder, taxes, John Krasinski starring in action movies”). Additionally, every oddball will probably be compared to a hybrid of two completely unrelated cultural icons (“You’re like if Tony Robbins had a baby with Gandalf”).
Exploding Kittens animated series does a good enough job of following those tried-and-true formulae to generate a few giggles, but there can be appeal in a comedy that settles into comfortable rhythms rather than forging new ones. The actors work hard to convey both the emotion and the fun.
As Marv, Proksch excels, presenting even the most depressing parts of his ordinary life with a casualness that somehow gives them a worse sense. Ellis portrays the arrogant attitude of a cat that finds it hard to believe he’s being made to cuddle with the very creatures he should be governing, and Zamata gives Hell’s reluctant CEO a sympathetic shyness. Their different connections never veer too far into sappiness or meanness—rather, they always manage to blend sweetness with sarcasm.
If you’re seeking lighthearted entertainment, you might do worse than watch Godcat become enamored with Bruce Willis and Whac-A-Mole, or flirt with Beelzebub while sipping cocktails and listening to “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol. If a genuinely new voice is concealed within all these wonderful mischievous acts, it hasn’t yet surfaced.
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