Review – Good Vibes

Good Vibes – MTV – 10:30/9:30pm Thursday – USA

It has not been a good week for new animated series, not only have we had the questionable return of Beavis And Butt-Head and the kind of awful Allen Gregory but MTV have also given us Good Vibes, which manages to be more juvenile than Butt-Head and less ambitious than Allen Gregory. There are two types of animated comedies that are brought into this world – shows that want to broadcast their distinct voice and world view like Ugly Americans and Bob’s Burgers or those that just want to be Family Guy like Neighbors From Hell and Good Vibes which tries so hard to be a Seth McFarlane production that I was genuinely surprised not to see the words ‘inspired by every breath Seth McFarlane has ever taken’ at the end of the credits.

Almost everything that happens in the first episode of Good Vibes feels like it’s been plucked from the dumpster out the front of Seth McFarlane’s house. The animation looks like somebody traced over some McFarlane sketches, the pop culture references feel like they’ve been tossed in because ‘that’s what Seth would do’, and the jokes about boners and boobs sound like they’re coming from a group of kids on the playground trying to remember all the naughty stuff from last night’s Family Guy. Yes, there are no talking animals, and yes, there is no bumbling father character, but it all feels so tired after the first episode that it’s hard to see what the point of any of this is.

Good Vibes tells the story of a chubby high schooler named Mondo (voiced by The Book of Mormon’s Josh Gad) who moves from Brooklyn to the beachside in California with his big-breasted mother Babs (Debi Mazar). Mondo meets a new friend named Woodie (voiced by Adam Brody, for some reason) when Woodie’s caught spying on Babs in the shower, because teenagers are horny and Mondo’s mom is hot. That’s about as deep as Good Vibes gets with its characters. The show also gives Mondo another top-heavy female to lust over in the form of classmate Jeena, unfortunately Jeena’s dating a real jerk named Turk. So far, so every coming-of-age comedy about a teen who moves with his single mom to a new town and meets a weirdo friend, a girl he crushes on and her thuggish boyfriend. Mondo also has an obese teacher named Ms. Teets, probably just so this show can join Allen Gregory in the ‘we think making fun of fat teachers is hilarious’ club.

There are two modes to Good Vibes – the pop culture mode and the sex joke mode. Both modes grind through the motions in the cheapest way possible. We have jokes like Mondo saying “face it, in a world full of Kardashians I’m the Khloe” and having a Snooki-like character describing Mondo’s chubby belly by saying “that aint no situation, that’s a damn tragedy”. They’re all half-assed, barely thought out soft balls lobbed directly at the MTV audience as if to applaud them for watching MTV. Congratulations, you get this joke because you watch this network. The sex jokes aren’t much more sophisticated, there’s a running gag where Mondo’s mom Babs makes reference to her previous jobs by saying “at least it’s better than being on your knees all day” or “at least it’s better than working a pole” and we then flash to scenes that show how she wasn’t actually a hooker or a stripper because har har you thought that’s what she meant, but she didn’t, isn’t it amusing how they played with your expectations like that.

Unlike Beavis And Butt-Head, which airs directly before Good Vibes, this series has no distinct sense of humour. It has a sense of humour borrowed from a bunch of other shows, and a cluster of pop culture reference that appear to have been handed to the writers by some executive at MTV. “It would be really funny if you could make a reference to our show 16 & Pregnant as part of corporate synergy week.” Copying somebody else’s work is okay if the end result is also worthwhile, but if you’re going to borrow heavily from other sources and make an inferior show, what’s the point? There was a preview at the end of the episode that gave us a look at ‘this season on Good Vibes’ and it showed more boobs, more dick jokes and more tired pop culture references; really it should have just been a black screen with the words ‘don’t bother’ written across it.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad