Many adults have fond memories of watching TV cartoons when they were children, whether the specific memories are of Top Cat, Scooby Doo, Smurfs or literally hundreds of other animated programs intended for children. But today, animated TV programs are not for children – and they haven’t been for a long, long time. From the original mean-spiritedness and “attitude” of Bart Simpson on The Simpsons, through the brainless and juvenile antics of Beavis and Butt-head in 1993, animation hit a new low point in the late 1990s with South Park and Family Guy; but naturally, it hasn’t stayed there. One inescapable rule of television is that if one show is mildly successful, others will not only imitate it, but will also intensify the elements which executives believe made the original hit popular. So if one program is laden with attitude, mocks families, and is filled with disgusting humor, subsequent shows will plunge to ever-greater depths trying to out-gross it (in both the financial and the aesthetic sense). Ironically, so depraved has prime-time animation become that The Simpsons --- which originally kicked off the trend towards snide cynicism in cartoons – today is considered a show suitable for families, while South Park, Family Guy, and Seth MacFarlane’s other cartoons revel in toilet and body-function humor, explicit sex, graphic violence, and as much crude language and behavior as they can get away with.  The latest cartoon to follow this “gross equals funny” mentality premiered on June 7^th at 10:00 p.m. ET on the TBS cable network. This new program, Neighbors from Hell, is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.  

Supernatural elements are popular right now, due to the success of the Twilight book and movie series and rip-offs like the TV programs The Vampire Diaries and True Blood, as well as shows like Supernatural. Pam Brady, former writer for South Park and proud creator of Neighbors, has simply combined some supernatural/demonic shtick with the trademarked crude flatulence and excrement jokes of South Park to come up with her tiresome new program. Offensive, Neighbors from Hell definitely is; but almost equally offensive as the show’s content is the creator’s and network’s presumption that what they are offering is somehow innovative. Indeed, Neighbors is not even the first cartoon this year to combine MacFarlane-style crudity with the supernatural -- as witness Comedy Central’s own Ugly Americans. So desperate is TBS to appear cool and with-it that they have now ordered up their own crass series, one which was delivered by a third-rate writer, with third-rate animation, and (let’s be frank) will be shown on a third-rate cable network, a channel previously known primarily for airing Atlanta Braves baseball games and reruns of the tacky cartoon Captain Planet.

Apparently working from the script and story equivalent of a paint-by-numbers kit, Brady has thrown together a grab-bag of allegedly “edgy” elements in hopes of making 12-going-on-30 teenagers gasp “K3WL!” and text their friends. In fact, there is nothing original in the show, and the only interest for adult viewers is deciding whether the tedious elements outweigh the offensive ones or vice versa; but for kids, the show is nothing less than toxic.

Demon Balthazar Hellman is ordered to take his demonic family to Earth and stop a giant drill from being built, lest it tunnel into Hell. This brainless setup serves as the excuse for an endless parade of vomit, flatulence and violent “jokes,” such as:

• Crazy neighbor Marjoe picks up the excrement left by her dog and smells it.

• Spotting the Hellman’s pet Pazuzu, Marjoe squeals, “You have a dog too?!” She grabs Pazuzu's crotch area and squeezes his testicles.

Marjoe: “And he's intact!”

Balthazar: “He's not a dog.”

Marjoe (referring to her poodle): “I know what you mean. I don't consider Champers a dog either -- especially after The Late Late Show!” As Marjoe makes out with her dog Champers, Balthazar’s wife slaps his rear and yells, “Damn, you know how to turn my crank. Damn! Damn! DAMMMN!” Marjoe whispers to her dog, “We'll have what they're having.”

• At work, Balthazar’s boss Don passes a security checkpoint with eye and hand scanner. He unzips his pants and inserts his penis into another scanner to open the door. Pnce inside, Don refers to a Turkish employee as a “little brown monkey.”

• Marjoe and Tina talk:

Marjoe: “And so I say to Brad, ‘Brad, Scotty's in second grade, it's time for the birds and the bees talk,’ so one morning while Scotty's enjoying brickies, Brad and I up and do it right there in the breakfast nook. I mean, Brad gave me a solid rogering right there under my shelf and negro salt and pepper shakers. “

• Balthazar’s Uncle Vlaatek vomits up intact the live cat he swallowed earlier. The cat’s owner kisses it, the cat and her lips covered with vomit.

• Marjoe: “We bought Scotty a goldfish and its black, just like those neighbors I ran out of town. So you'll never guess what we named it -- it starts with an N and rhymes with a Winnie the Pooh character.”

Vomit. Excrement. Racism. Pam Brady has indeed learned well from her apprenticeship on South Park; clearly, there is no stone so foul that she won’t leave it unturned in a futile quest for viewers.

Naturally, TBS rates the program as appropriate for 14-year-olds (and in fact surrounds the show with reruns of Family Guy, lest there be any doubt about what audience the network seeks to attract). Sadly, every cable and satellite subscriber in America who doesn’t find this dreck amusing is nevertheless paying for it.

For foisting on the public yet another tiresome, crude and brainless cartoon, TBS’ Neighbors from Hell is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.

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