Review: Fairview “Covid Party”

Overview

Despite a Covid outbreak in Fairview, Mayor Kelly and the gang throw an epic Super Bowl Party. Meanwhile, Beef’s mom Holly catches him vaxxing and brings on Breckman to set him straight.

Our Take

For fans of RJ Fried created efforts like Our Cartoon President, Tooning Out The News, and Popzilla, this is gonna be right up your alley. The series follows a town called Fairview which, on the surface, appears like your normal American neighborhood with differing political views that come to a head at some point during the course of the episode. The first half of the episode sees Mayor Kelly and the gang throw a Super Bowl party, but when someone comes up hot testing positive for COVID, the health ramifications of hosting a major event during a pandemic continues to come into focus. On the other side of the coin, we are introduced to a dumb “Cartman” like kid named Beef who is far more progressive than his parents, and as such, is subjected to a de-radicalization effort by a much more conservative Breckman.

Some of the same issues from Our Cartoon President show up in Fairview. Political humor, still a thing, but is there so much of it that the fanbase will tire of the same ol’ brand of jokes sooner rather than later? South Park was doing COVID specials, last year, which is already three months ago…a lifetime in contemporary humor. A lot of the punchlines here you’ve heard before, Joe Rogan’s COVID cures, anti-mask citizens, and even anti-vaxx are all alive and well-represented here. The question is, can Fairview be MORE than political humor? There are a lot of things here that I think could bode well for a funny show. The character designs are cute as hell, kinda looking like a cross between Tooning Out The News, and Fisher Price’s Little People. The cast is strong featuring the likes of Marina Cockenberg, James Austin Johnson, Aparna Nancherla, Jeremy Levick, Blair Socci, Graham Techler, Atsuko Okatsuka, Otter Lee, Carl Foreman Jr, Jack Bensinger, Lisa Gilroy, and Joey Romaine.

The tools are everywhere, except in the writing. Fairview premieres after the biggest animated shadow on Planet Earth and unfortunately will never be able to “out-topical humor” in the form of South Park. But, maybe Fairview doesn’t have to worry about being topical, and instead, just worries about getting the best original humor, because right now, there’s a lot more work that needs to be done in that department.