(Photo courtesy of: Sports Illustrated) “‘Grimsburg’ is Fox’s new adult animation series.”

Riley Fontana
Connector Editor

The newest attempt at adult animation has officially aired on Fox. “Grimsburg” is an animated series following a detective trying to get his life back on track while solving crimes in the town of Grimsburg. The biggest mystery in the pilot is who asked for this.

Animation will always serve as a way for cable shows to have more gore and “Grimsburg” is no different. Within the first few minutes, someone is beheaded with a chainsaw and the episode goes downhill from there. The main character Marvin Flute, voiced by John Hamm, is more than a deadbeat father and disgraced detective he is unlikable and entirely unable to be rooted for, the way a protagonist should be.

The first episode moves through the murder and kidnapping of high school students with no remorse or care. While yes the crimes in the show are fictional, events like this take place daily and them being played off for laughs feels out of touch. The whole crime is solved in one 30-minute episode which brings into question the pacing of the rest of the season. Surely one small town, no matter how cursed, can not have that many crimes to warrant a new crime every episode.

One of the main gags throughout the episode is everyone’s inability to do their jobs. Marvin is barely welcomed back to the force because of the crime, the science teacher can not give an ounce of sympathy to the parents and the medical examiner is too busy painting a corpse’s toenails to notice the flute sticking out of its behind. The other jokes in the show are played off as if the writers want the show to flop. At one point a joke is made about Pete Davidson’s love life with the animation stopping and an audio clip plays saying something along the lines of: “Insert name here in post-production”. The end of the episode carries a similar joke about it being a good sign the show is getting a large scenic end scene.

Another character is Stan, Marvin’s son, who is showing signs of mental health issues the show is playing off as a gag. Stan’s only friend is an imaginary skeleton who creates dangerous plans to help Stan get his parents back together. His parents are very aware of this dangerous friend but simply do not care enough to make sure his therapy is working and that Stan is improving.

Adult cartoons have been good for a while now and “Grimsburg” is another name in the pile of failed or unfunny shows. Fox has been home to many great adult animation series such as “Bob’s Burgers”, “The Great North” and “The Simpsons” but they have had a large number of failures.

This only being the pilot episode of “Grimsburg” means there is so much room for improvement. Adding in any likable character would be a great place to start and get a handle on the pacing issues the series already has. “Grimsburg” only has one direction to go and its up, and hopefully they take it.

Overall Grade: D