If the name Pendleton Ward doesn't ring a bell, he's the guy who brought us the remarkably silly and surreal Adventure Time. If you haven't seen Adventure Time, it involves the daring exploits of a human boy, his shape-shifting dog and a colourful cast of loveable oddballs in a weird fantasy world and was brilliant fun. When it finally reached the end of his run, Ward stated publically he wasn't interested in making anymore TV shows but for whatever reason he heard some podcasts by a stand up comedian called Duncan Trussell and decided to conjure The Midnight Gospels like some sort of psychedelic demon from the pits of cartoon Hell. I've never heard of Duncan Trussell, but apparently he toured with Joe Rogan which kind of sheds a little light on the content of his podcasts which appear to be sort of one step behind the Joe Rogan Experience (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and Trussell did it first).
There is an attempt at plot, but it really isn't much more than a framing device. Duncan is Clancy, a bright pink guy perpetually clad in a bathing towel and Gandalf hat who runs a "spacecast" to a handful of subscribers by projecting himself into an avatar through a second rate simulator and interviewing the denizens of the world's he visits. It's astoundingly high concept considering how little it actually matters in the grand scheme of things. The episodes themselves bear little to no relation to the content of the script save for the occasional line, but in honesty it's fairly forgettable. There's a zombie outbreak where Clancy talks to the president about drugs, a weird clown planet where deer dogs are smushed into sentient paste while Clancy interviews one of them about Christianity, and one where a guy with a fish bowl for a head talks about Magick.
Animation style aside - personally I think it looks crap, but that's me I guess - the podcasts themselves that form the best part of the script are just infuriating. Now, everyone is entitled to their opinion, beliefs etc of course but honestly the conversations going on here are the stuff of teenage house parties where everyone has had a little weed and suddenly thinks they're the world's greatest philosopher. The guests are for the most part, relatively famous: Dr. Drew is an American broadcaster/TV host and Damien Echolls was locked away unjustly for years as part of the West Memphis Three. Frankly though, to me they're just flapping their gums about pseudo-intellectual bullshit. I guess it's a personal thing; I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to spiritualist horseshit; I'm clearly not a woke as some other people and I'm 100% OK with that. If you can stomach some random hippy flapping on about forgiveness like it's some sort of superpower whilst the animated characters murder Seven shades of shit out of someone for a magic potion; or watch a wad of meat ostensibly ramble on about how accepting that death is inevitable allows you be to the same as Jesus; or have the aforementiined man-with-a-goldfish-in-a-bowl-for-a-head tell you that meditation is really preparing your soul for one of many deaths to come until you conscious can wander the ether however it chooses then more power to you. I'm not sure Dr. Drew espousing the idea that there are no bad drugs, only bad circumstances isn't only wildly irresponsible but also pretty offensive to anyone who's overcome any sort of substance addiction. Not white knighting here, but are you honestly going to try and say heroin isn't a bad drug, people just did it wrong? Or crack? Or Meth? Seems like a weird flex is all. Personally I'd rather have the shape-shifting dog.
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