Drawn Together
Drawn Together is an American adult animated television sitcom created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein and premiered on Comedy Central on October 27, 2004. The series is a parody of Big Brother and follows the misadventures of the housemates in the fictional show of the same name and uses a sitcom format with a reality TV show setting.
The show's main characters are a combination of personalities that were recognisable and familiar prior to the series. Differently, however, Drawn Together used caricatures of established cartoon characters and stock characters. In addition, their character traits parody personality types that are typically seen in reality TV shows.
Comedy Central advertised it as the first animated reality TV series, and in some episodes, the characters participate in challenges that are similar to reality TV challenges, although the premise is largely dropped in later episodes.
After three seasons, the show was cancelled. Subsequently, a direct-to-video film and series finale, was released on April 20, 2010.
Premise
Cast and characters
- Captain Leslie Hero : A sociopathic, chauvinistic, perverted, anti-heroic, pansexual, necrophilic and lecherous parody of Superman and other superheroes, with a visual style taken from the cartoons of Bruce Timm and Max Fleischer. Being primarily macho, he is prone to occasional random fits of hysterics akin to posttraumatic stress disorder, playing off the "tragic origin" stories of many superheroes.
- Wooldoor Jebediah Sockbat : A hyperactive, idiotic, gullible bizarre children's show character in the mold of SpongeBob SquarePants and Stimpy who displays many of the typical reality-defying behaviours of Looney Tunes characters.
- Princess Clara : A, religious and bigoted princess who is a spoof of Disney princesses such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid and Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She is homophobic, passionate about singing, and usually wears a lavender dress and white pearl earrings.
- Foxxy Love : A sharp-tongued ghetto-spoof of Valerie Brown from Hanna-Barbera's Josie and the Pussycats, she is a promiscuous mystery-solving musician.
- Toot Braunstein : An overweight, egotistical and alcoholic retro-style sex symbol who is a parody of Betty Boop. Toot demands to be the centre of attention, cuts herself with razor blades, practices poor personal hygiene and eats excessively when depressed and often instigates conflict in the house.
- Xandir P. Wifflebottom : A hypersensitive, homosexual and effeminate spoof of video game heroes like Link from The Legend of Zelda series and Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII.
- Spanky Ham : A sex-obsessed, toilet-humored, obnoxious anthropomorphic pig and a parody of various Internet Flash cartoon characters as well as ' cast member David "Puck" Rainey.
- Ling-Ling' : A psychopathic, homicidal anime character who is heavily based on Pikachu from the Pokémon'' franchise. He battles using various supernatural powers/abilities and speaks in pseudo-Japanese gibberish with English subtitles.
Production
Animation style
The show's visual style is that of digital ink-and-paint. The style was chosen both for the retro feel it gives the show and for the versatility and freedom it allows the animators, providing an environment in which it is possible to combine many different styles of animation. Another unique aspect of the show is that, where most cartoons present their characters, though animated, as real within the show's world, the Drawn Together characters retain their identities as cartoon characters even within their animated world, and acknowledge their status as animations. The show has cameo appearances by famous characters from all across the animated spectrum. In keeping with the various animation styles for the characters, Wooldoor and Toot have four fingers on each hand, whereas Clara, Foxxy, Hero and Xandir have five. In promotional artwork for the show, Toot and Wooldoor are drawn with the standard five fingers, but in the show itself they have four. Whereas most of the characters are drawn with black outlines, Clara and items belonging to her are drawn with soft edges, a reference to Disney animation techniques, which involve "cleanup" of any black outlines. Contrasting, Toot is drawn in the grainy, high-contrast monochrome of her era's technology.The show was made by Rough Draft Studios in Glendale, California, with much of the animation done at the studio's facilities in South Korea. A gag in "The Drawn Together Clip Show" is that they show a list of all the Korean children who died animating the show.
The movie was produced by 6 Point Harness and done completely with Flash animation due to budget cuts.
Cancellation
A total of three seasons were produced. Season 3 began airing on October 5, 2006, and took a mid-season break which started on November 15, 2006. The second half of season three began airing on October 4, 2007.In March 2007, it was announced that creators Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein had left Comedy Central, and later created DJ & the Fro for their sister channel MTV in 2009, and eventually signed a two-year contract with 20th Century Fox Television to create new series and/or work on the studio's existing shows.
The season three finale included multiple jokes about the show's cancellation. TV Guide listed this episode as a series finale and described the episode as follows: "The series wraps up with the housemates participating in a singing competition as they look back on their recent misadventures."
In March 2008, Tara Strong confirmed that the show had been cancelled, and the back of the third season DVDs box refers to it as the "third and final season".
Since cancellation, the show has partial rotation late-nights, and airs uncensored on Comedy Central's Secret Stash and on Logo.
Despite the cancellation, the official page of Drawn Together in Myspace had suggested the fans call Comedy Central and convince them to make a new season.
Content
The plots and humor of Drawn Together are adult-oriented and laden with shock comedy. The humor is largely morbid and satirical in nature, its primary focus being the mockery of stereotypes and the casual exploration of taboo subject matter, such as masturbation, paraphilia, kinky sex, homosexuality or gay marriage, abortion, rape, incest, menstruation, spousal abuse, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, antisemitism, necrophilia, terrorism, graphic violence and death. Episodes such as "Gay Bash" or "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special", for example, feature the exploration of homosexuality as a central theme. Nearly all episodes feature at least one death, and several episodes feature characters going on killing sprees or perpetrating or becoming victims of, though the main characters subsequently returned alive and uninjured. The show breaks the fourth wall regularly; on one occasion, the show mocks Adam Carolla, the voice of Spanky Ham.Despite the show's overt and underlined sexuality, the characters' innocent and sensual sides are often the main driving force of the plot. This adds romantic comedy, melodrama, action film, war film, court drama and other genres to the pool of spoofing material. Sincere feelings the characters are forced to experience seem to add integrity to the plot and imbue every episode with a genuine moral message, made more efficient by constant spoofing of moral message clichés like "character X has learned a valuable lesson".
Comedy Central's original tagline for the show was "Find out what happens when cartoon characters stop being polite... and start making out in hot tubs", referring to Clara and Foxxy's kiss in the pilot episode. The line is a parody of The Real World
The extensive use of stereotypes is another controversial aspect of the show, though the intent is actually to make fun of bigotry. As Jess Harnell states in the DVD commentary for "Hot Tub", "Most of the racism on the show is coming from people who are so obviously stupid about it; it really isn't that threatening". Other content known to be featured on some episodes are occurrences of natural disasters, depictions of dictators and sexual fetishes.
Drawn Together is heavy with popular culture references. Animation is a major source of material; as mentioned above, many characters from comics and animated cartoons make cameo appearances and often are the subjects of parody. However, numerous live-action films, TV shows, and video games are referenced as well. Reality shows are another prime inspiration, not surprising given that Drawn Together is presented as a reality show that takes place in a cartoon world. However, although many of the first-season plots made extensive use of the reality show scenario, this aspect of the show has largely been de-emphasized in later episodes. The spoofing of film and television clichés is another common theme on the show; many Drawn Together stories are parodies of overused plots from TV and films.
One notable factor of the series are musical numbers. Some are parodies of real songs. Only two episodes do not feature a musical performance.
In terms of continuity, events in different episodes contradict each other, as there is a loose sense of canon. One such example is in "The Other Cousin" and "N.R.A.y RAY", in which Toot is pictured with a penis, something that is not consistent with other episodes. Another is Foxxy's various and contradictory stories about her son Timmy. Plots and gags are often used that do not make any type of internal sense, but are used as one-off jokes, as when Foxxy, who is in her twenties, is said to have a teenage grandson. Some episodes begin with a fake recap of events supposed to have happened in a previous episode. According to executive producer Bill Freiberger, "Very little on Drawn Together can be considered canon. If you try to find continuity on this show you'll drive yourself nuts. The only thing that's consistent is we try to make the show as funny as possible. And we'd never let a little thing like continuity get in the way of that."
Occasionally, episodes of Drawn Together are shown with less editing for content during Secret Stash, a Comedy Central program aired on weekends at 1am that showcases films, comedy specials, and animated programs with uncensored language. Though Secret Stash programs typically have the nudity still censored, Drawn Together is an exception to this. Some nudity not seen in the original broadcast is shown in the Secret Stash version, while the nudity in other scenes is censored with a caption reading "DVD only"; this is done as a way of promoting the show's DVD releases.
Voice cast
Drawn Together features a cast of voice actors, which contains a mix of veteran voice actors and newcomers to the field.Three of the show's voice actors had worked with creators Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein on other projects: Jack Plotnick on Action, and Adam Carolla and Abbey McBride on The Man Show. Two of Drawn Together
Principal cast member Tara Strong has stated that she deeply loves the show, as it was such a departure from the family-friendly productions that she was used to working on at the time. The only problems that she had with it were a few jokes related to Anne Frank.
Originally, Xandir was to have been played by Nat Faxon, but he was fired following the first table read because the network felt his portrayal of the character was too stereotypically gay. Actor Jack Plotnick ended up being cast because he could play a gay man without resorting to stereotypical mannerisms such as the gay lisp.
In addition to their regular roles, the show's cast provides many of the minor roles and guest voices on the series, Summer, Strong, Harnell and Taylor in particular. In the DVD commentary for "Hot Tub", Tara Strong jokes that this is because the show does not have a lot of money to pay guest stars. Chris Edgerly appears in the majority of Season One and Two episodes despite not having a regular role on the series.
Critical reception
The pilot episode, "Hot Tub", was given mediocre reviews, which focused mostly on its crudity. USA Today deemed Drawn Together "the smutty offspring of Real World and Superfriends", stating that the pilot pushed the limits of taste, being overpowered by violence, sex, and disgusting subject matter. According to The New York Times, "Hot Tub", while it had many good sight gags, did not go far enough in parodying reality television. The domination of Clara's racism in the story was criticized as being a weak attempt to "send up racism while still showcasing its cruel excitement". Toot's cutting was praised as a good parody of self-harm presented on reality shows, but Spanky's flatulence was considered more disgusting than humorous.The pilot episode was given an F rating from Entertainment Weekly, leading to the second-season episode "Xandir and Tim, Sitting in a Tree" having a subplot in which the majority of the housemates seek revenge for the rating. The latter episode also received an F from the magazine. Despite the criticism, the first season overall received positive reviews, with a Metacritic rating of 7.6 out of 10.
TV Guide named Drawn Together in its 60 Greatest Cartoons of All Time list in 2013.
Episodes
Home releases
Season releases| DVD name | Release date | Discs | Episodes | Special features |
| Season One Uncensored | October 4, 2005 | 2 | 7 |
|
| Season Two Uncensored | September 25, 2007 | 2 | 15 | |
| Season Three Uncensored | May 13, 2008 | 2 | 14 | |
| Complete Series: Party in Your Box | November 17, 2009 | 6 | 36 | |
| April 20, 2010 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Drawn Together: The Complete Collection | October 10, 2017 | 7 | 36 |
The set has a game called the Censored/Uncensored game: A line is given, and the viewer must decide if the line aired on television as given, or if it had to be altered significantly or deleted. Some of the censored lines appear intact in the extended DVD version of the episode. Getting at least 11 of the 19 questions correct unlocks a hidden feature, a prank phone call by Jeser and Silverstein to their agent regarding the royalties they are to receive for the DVD audio commentaries.
The song "Time of My Life" from "Dirty Pranking No. 2" had to be left off the first season DVD because of copyright concerns. The show mocked the situation in the lyrics of the replacement music.
Season Two Uncensored was released on September 25, 2007. Like the Season One set, the set features audio commentaries by Jeser and Silverstein along with assorted cast and crew members, as well as karaoke/singalong versions of the show's songs. The set also contains, in the words of the box art, "potentially annoying" commentary on the commentary for "Terms of Endearment". The behind-the-scenes interviews in the set are the same ones that appear on Comedy Central's website, which feature each of the voice actors talking about his or her character, along with a separate interview with creators Jeser and Silverstein. Tara Strong does two separate interviews, one for each of her characters.
The set includes the controversial horse shot from "Terms of Endearment", which was not allowed to air on television.
Season Three Uncensored was released on May 13, 2008.