Season Review: Daddy and the Big Boy Season One
Who’s your daddy?
VRV Mondo is really the only channel left on the VRV service that makes any sense in what it wants to be, but that doesn’t mean that they are done trying to figure themselves out. In the same year we’ve seen really good stuff like Lastman, Gary and his Demons, and Allen’s Pole, we’ve gotten mixed messages on how it wants to get to its ultimate goal of being a servicable channel. While some animated originals have had longer episodes and full seasons, series like Cat Agent, Deep Space 69 and others have shown their age by not fully taking advantage of what being on a streaming platform is all about.
For my money, Daddy and the Big Boy is a series that clearly has Youtube DNA provided by producers Bart Batchelor and Chris Nielsen. The premise of Daddy and the Big Boy sees two guys trying to hide from a bunch of investigators for fear of learning of their criminal pasts as well as thwarting any attempts at disrupting their faux yet lavish lifestyle. Each episode is under four minutes each, further leading to the precipice that the series isn’t constructed like a franchise that should be on a paywall streaming platform and more like a freebie on Youtube or part of a sketch series. In fact, I’d argue that both this show and Allen’s Pole could probably fit that MO but at least Allen’s Pole has the better premise that makes me want to continue watching week after week. Daddy and the Big Boy is a weekly run at the same gag with characters that are fun but don’t give me enough to invest in quite frankly and this is vital for the longevity of any animated streaming series. Netflix does this very well. Certain franchises on VRV do this very well. Daddy and the Big Boy needs a few more bolts tightened to be taken seriously.
I’ll be curious to see how VRV Mondo plays out in 2019. VRV has a new parent company in AT&T so I’ll be curious to see what kind of budget the streaming service works within the months to come. We’ve seen several streaming platforms shutter in 2018, Mondo is one of the good ones, but only if it takes to do what it was doing at the start of the year and not so many franchises like this and Deep Space 69 because I’m not sure we, the internet cartoon watching audience, hasn’t grown up from that.
