Toon Zone Talkback - "Click & Clack's As the Wrench Turns:" Like "Car Talk" Without the Funny Bits

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firemankerry

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This is the talkback thread for "Click & Clack's As the Wrench Turns:" Like "Car Talk" Without the Funny Bits.
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Huh. Never heard of this.
 
The animated show based on "car talk" debuted tonight on PBS? Anyone check it out? The first one started off slow but got good, loved the (admittedly cruel) gag with the ugly baby. The second one wasnt that good, save for the opening scene.
 
I liked all the jokes at the expense at PBS, and some of the in-jokes (writer Tom Minton's name on a piece of paper, a reference to the Lugnut Tighteners' Union Local 839- director Tom Sito was the head of the Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839), and some of the bad puns (politicians named M. Bezzle and Phil Landerer), but the whole thing just fell flat. The premise is interesting, but the way it was done is lacking for some reason.
 
Politics, preachiness, presidential elections, and of course, the pledge drive. Yeah. This looks tailor made for people who are already PBS/NPR junkies...

Got a good laugh at the Bolywood dancing gag in the second episode, overall, not as good as I would have hoped.
 
It's not something I would watch every week. In fact I kept fighting the urge to change the channel. The only reason I got through it was that I only get two channels here, and the other one was showing one of those CSI shows I hate.

I have to give it credit for not talking down to its audience. Public financing for elections and outsourcing, not portrayed in some stupid allegory, aren't usual topics for cartoons. It's definitely something NPR and news junkies would appreciate more than the general public. There's a James Carville cariacture in the first episode, for example. And I used to listen to Car Talk a lot and like those guys, although it was weird to find out that they weren't both big and fat like I pictured them.

But it ain't especially funny.
 
Anyone who expected a quality animated program from PBS is rather naive. It's not gonna happen. It's PBS. Animation is not their forte.

But what's this I hear about Tom Minton's name being on this?
 
Doug Berman is the longtime head writer of both the "Car Talk" radio show and the animated series. Tom Minton was script supervisor/story editor who put Berman's stuff into an animation production-friendly format. Tom Sito directed under a microscopic budget, hence the "Lil Bush" comparison in the TZ review.
 
I did notice Doug "Bongo Boy" Berman's name in the credits before the show was on, especially after the NY Times made a note of it in their article about the show. Seeing as I like "Car Talk" and Berman's own NPR show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me," I am completely puzzled where all the funny went in this show.

-- Ed
 
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