Review: The Cyanide & Happiness Show “The Animator’s Curse”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Benson is a stop-motion animator who’s in danger of losing his job…until he meets a genie named Tiny Gene who gives him “all the time in the world to finish a shot”. Only problem is that this freezes time everywhere, with the only way to unfreeze it being through a special button. Antics ensue as Benson learns to control and abuse his new power over space-time, but eventually he finishes the shot. But even though his job is now secure, time is now frozen because he only asked for enough time to finish! So instead he decides to move everything himself, eventually becoming…God?

OUR TAKE

Guest stars galore in this week’s episode! Yep, this time Cyanide & Happiness is visited by some notable cameos, some of which being known for animation themselves. The most notable of which is Benson, who is played by Robert Benfer, a famous (and apparently infamous?) stop-motion animator on Youtube, which I guess is how they came up with Benson’s job choice and the plot. Though other guest spots people might recognize more are Zach Hadel (Psychicpebbles) as Tiny Gene, Chris O’ Neil (OneyNG) and Arin Hanson (Egoraptor) as announcers, and Justin Roiland of Rick & Morty as Benson’s boss. It’s not exactly an all star cast, but it’s definitely an appropriate line up of artists who got their start in freelance animation for an episode about the toils of an animator.

As for the plot, it more or less reminds me of a certain Simpsons Treehouse of Horror segment (which I turn was probably a parody of an existing story somewhere that I haven’t seen), but I think it’s used in an interesting way. Giving the power to stop time to a stop-motion animator opens up a different outlook on that sort of story than if it were given to some random person. Those who know about stop-motion probably know that it’s about moving objects slightly to make several shots to make it look like it’s moving, but I certainly never imagined taking the struggles of that and turning it into someone reshaping the world. It actually makes it a bit funnier than it would a normal story AND works as sort of a possible prequel for this show’s version of God, since he tends to pop in occasionally. It might also explain God’s odd cameos so far this season and, knowing this show’s way of paying things off, will possibly have a hand in the season finale.

This is probably my favorite episode of the season so far, showing Cyanide & Happiness’ unique blend of humor and story utilized very well with a novel concept and surprising array of guest voices in a charming tribute to an underrated form in the medium of animation. With the season being half over now, I wonder if the back half will be able to keep up this momentum in having their remaining episodes be just as clever and meta. Next time looks to be a continuation of the Lunk character, who I’ve never been super crazy about, but maybe that’ll change now.