Season Review: Our Cartoon President Season Two

Take on me.

As we stare into what will be a fun-filled 2020 Presidential race between 2,500 Democratic candidates and a guy who has hired on more sex traffickers than the Catholic Church, you can definitely sense a shift in anti-Trump jokes. Yes, Twitter is still rife with them whenever Donald Trump posts anything and Stephen Colbert can be counted on to deliver some sauce on a daily basis, It’s kind of like Marvel movies, right? After Avengers: Endgame, I can already sense a tiredness with even companies like Netflix not bothering to renew any of their Marvel series and both X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Hellboy bombing in a bad way at the domestic box offices. It’s close to over kids, so you better enjoy it now.

In a surprising turn-of-events, the second season of Our Cartoon President does it’s best to diversify from purely an anti-Republican joke to an overall “the entire government is fucked” type of motif rife with jokes that should appeal to both sides of the political aisle. That said, you have to be totally in the mood for political humor that can be seen on the likes of Oliver, Noah, or FOX News to start. For my money, the cold opens are excellent. Truly indicative of the quick-hit type stuff you’d used to see more of on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but then most episodes descend into cliched efforts that wouldn’t be out of place on American Dad! or The Simpsons. Usually it’s premises revolving around Trump doing stupid shit to make himself look better or failing at a goal that he spends whole episode trying to meet. Again, very Homer, very Peter Griffin, nothing you haven’t seen a dozen times.

That said, when the show diverts focus from Trump, the writers are forced to be a bit more creative, especially when dealing with the Democratic field. The MVP of this effort, is James Adomian, the voice of Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, and a dozen more characters that got a lot of screen time this go-round. James has always been a killer in the voice booth and that’s something that’s quickly being taken of notice in and around Hollywood and we’re enjoying the fruits of his labor. And there are a lot of really good one-liners written into the dialogue for everybody that will give you that savior chuckle through what could be, at times, laborious efforts to get through episodes.

Fortunately, Our Cartoon President helps fill a void for Sunday Nights @ 8 pm that is left behind when The Simpsons is in reruns. It gives you a big mis-colored oaf with a cast of characters that you appreciate checking in on from time-to-time. However, don’t expect anyone reinventing the wheel here anytime soon.