We go from great to mediocre for Disney Land.

When Crash and Bernstein first premiered last year we didn’t know what to expect. Some kind of tagged it as a ‘Ted for kids’, but it was probably closer to an Alf for kids, and for the most part it worked. There are actually some REALLY strong performances on this show from both industry vets and newcomers which helps us cancel out the fact that this is a Disney-produced series.

I might be a bit biased, but Danny Woodburn (The Watchmen, Death to Smoochy) as Mr. Poulos is my favorite and I really enjoyed watching his character go from a bit player to a more integral person in episodes whether it’d be providing a setting with his log cabin or doing his best to whack Crash as the stuffed guy goes nuts, he brings a bevy of laugh out loud one-liners that in a lot of cases save the whole episode. Mary Bridsong as ‘Mel’, and Landry Bender as ‘Cleo’ also brought a sense of professionalism for new-comers like Cole Jensen whom I felt needed that bedrock of support while he was becoming acclimated to a leading role.

Of course, the center piece of the entire show is Tim Lagasse as Crash of whom may be a future superstar for Disney and if I were the large network I’d start putting this guy on tour akin to a Jeff Dunham because you can do live shows with puppets that are certainly far better than the crap that the network does for Phineas and Ferb Live. 

The main drawbacks of the series really are the poorly-written dialogue, tired story lines, and Aaron Landon as ‘Pesto’ the latter of whom is so bad that I think you can get all of his footage and then make a sizzle reel for terrorists as a means to get information because no one wants to listen to that much bad acting in one sitting.

Crash and Bernstein has the right ingredients in place to turn this into a quality series…hopefully for Season 2 we can start seeing them put to better use.

7.5 out of 10