- Network: FOX
- Series Premiere Date: Jan 15, 2012
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Critic Reviews
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The TV series picks up perfectly where the movie left off, adding spice along the way.
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The animated version of Napoleon Dynamite is almost as funny as a cartoon version as it was in the flesh.
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It's far funnier than Fox's two still relatively new animated series, Bob's Burgers and Allen Gregory. Mickey Mouse it's not, though.
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This Napoleon Dynamite is all go, go, go, racing, if nothing else, to keep pace with the host of other animated prime-time shows it joins.
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Whether Napoleon will work as a weekly animated series may depend on how well a teenager fits in with the other oddballs who populate Fox's Sunday-night animation bloc.
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In spots, it's been turned into an antic Saturday morning cartoon. A shame.
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The combination of the characters and the style made the whole shebang much easier for me to take than the movie. Still, I didn't feel any need to watch later episodes.
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Napoleon Dynamite the series forms its comedic syntax in the vernacular of those established shows [The Simpsons, Family Guy] instead of retaining the singular phrasing of Napoleon Dynamite the movie, and suffers as a result.
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The mixture isn't dynamite but does have moments of quirky charm, and at least marks a step up in class from "Allen Gregory."
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While many from the original cast, including Jon Heder, lend their voices, the film's core of discomforting weirdness has been scrapped for cartoon zaniness.
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If you were reduced to hysterical laughter by the concept of herbal breast-enlargement cream in the film, you will likely be so again by the superpower-conveying acne medicine in the TV show. If not, well, welcome to Normal Town.
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Over all, though, Sunday night's episodes are neither here nor there, lacking the oddball singularity of the movie while not yet achieving the satirical bite that would make the TV show interesting.
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It's still not funny. [23 Jan 2012, p.42]
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At least with the movie, the actors relayed a vulnerability that sparked occasional empathy. That pathos got lost in the transition from live action to animation.
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While animation liberates Napoleon and his world from the usual physical restrictions, it somehow lessens the overall appeal of the character and setting.
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Other than re-living some of Napoleon's favorite catchphrases from the 2004 movie, there's not much enjoyment to be gleaned from this obvious, unfunny episode.
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Taken together, the monotone voices and 2D characters end up falling flat.
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With a look recalling the glories of King of the Hill, but no discernible point of view or comic fuse of its own, Dynamite is a dud.
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Animating [the movie] doesn't actually make it better (or even funny), even if you bring back the original cast to do the voice work.
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The writing is a big problem. It's just not funny.
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Everything feels like a put-on; nothing seems plausible.
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The characters are readymade jokes unto themselves, and the plots unfolding around them seem like little more than scenes found on the film's cutting room floor.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 52
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Mixed: 15 out of 52
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Negative: 18 out of 52
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Jan 16, 2012
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Jan 16, 2012
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Jan 15, 2012