Review: SEX SWING “CAN YOU DIG IT”

Find out if we dig this new series.

Spoilers Below
Sex Swing is the new cartoon from Rooster Teeth, the same studio that brought you the classic Red v. Blue and more recently the cult hit RWBY.

Based in Austin, which famously hosts the SXSW music and innovation festival, Rooster Teeth has shown talent across a number of genres. With that in mind, I sat down to watch the show with a lot of hope. The show opens with a typical situational set-up: broke band takes a questionable gig from their “cockram” manager. That’s right, “cockram,” and this is only the first of many view-askew insults, observations, and actions.

The band comprises four members: a frontman who speaks in the third person, a sensitive and acerbic brainy type, a guy who will eat anything and is generally imperturbable, and another one whose function is to act slick at all times. While the venue is empty, the band is cheered on by an obviously insane proprietor who says that since the bar is actually atop a gold mine, he plans to pay in actual gold. The band is prevented from accepting the reward by the predictable forces of rising action and conflict intervene: they are held up by a bandit. In a wheelchair. Who then agrees – for the reason of being a cooperative plot device – not to rob them but to compete in games of strength, chance, and wit, with all the predictable opportunities for our band members’ distinctive traits to become evident faster than you can say “exposition.”

The banter within the band and between them and the villains is enjoyable, if predictable. The villains are well-matched toward the band. Within at least the boundaries of the universe they have staked out, it fits. If you want some easy laughs and undemanding viewing, this is a fun show. Sex Swing has some things going for it like a solid grasp of sitcom mechanics, a certain kind of daring to color outside the lines, and a team of creatives who’ve proved they can execute.

I couldn’t resist thinking, however, that it rests in my mind somewhat uncomfortably between American Movie and Metalocalypse. It’s interested in succeeding in a difficult genre, imbued with an over-the- top and slightly morbid comic sensibility, but I’m not sure they arrive at a punchline.

SCORE
7/10