Review: Allen Gregory “Pilot”

Mature and accomplished beyond his seven years—and arrogant, to boot—Allen Gregory De Longpre (voice of Jonah Hill) finds attending public school, mixing with kids his own age and kowtowing to faculty beneath him in the premiere of this animated comedy, though he attempts to connect with the principal on a much higher level. Hill is also a cocreator and executive producer of the series.

Spoilers below!

Allen Gregory isn’t your standard fare here on Animation Domination. I’ve said it a thousand times, that this was going to be a different show then the shows that give us the typical Flintstones blueprint (i.e. a husband ,his wife that is too good for him, some kids, and a fonzie character).  And that’s what I think is great about Allen Gregory, the fact that we are getting something very different from the minds of David Goodman(showrunner) and Jonah Hill.

Allen Gregory deals with a story of a 7 year old pompous kid who has to go to public school after being pampered his whole life, and with that comes all the fixins’. He is raised by his dad, Richard, his gay partner Jeremy, and his adopted sister Jules. To start off, all the kids are cute as the dickens…they are! Especially, Julie and her mile-long forehead and her non-conformist attitude which makes her the brunt of Allen Gregory’s jokes.

This show has a stellar cast and is scripted well, like even though Richard and Allen Gregory are ruthless, underneath you do see heart. Some might complain that Allen is very mean to his family, but he has a lot of fitting in to do and some people react differently. I mean here’s a kid that has a borderline obsessive father, a sister who is certainly supportive but due to the fact that she was recently adopted Allen has to go from being the only child to now giving up some space and that can be hard at a young age.  It really has to be a culture shock for Gregory because he is a child who was so used to being home-schooled, and having  now to be sent to a public school where he’s clearly a fish out of water as he has to deal with bullies, make new friends, and even has school crushes with faculty, what kid hasn’t had to deal with that?

Jonah Hill is perfect in this role, too and expertly voices a character of whom we’ve all seen in real life. What? You don’t think your kids are spoiled and rotten and mean? Think again. There are Allen Gregories all over the place and if you don’t believe me go to the mall during the upcoming holiday season and tell me these kids aren’t crawling all over the place.

All in all, I think there’s a lot here, the characters have a ton of room to grow, and Allen Gregory definitely brings a certain freshness to Fox’s already stellar lineup and to be honest maybe it helps provide a bit of comfort to those who fear a post-Seth/Simpsons Animation Domination.