TV Funhouse is a great series that never lasted long. A spin-off of Saturday Night Live's Saturday TV Funhouse segment that ran from 1996 until 2008), the series is basically an adult parody of shows like Howdy Doody Time and Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
Why is it adult? Because it's rated TV-MA (and some episodes had a warning about it). Airing on Comedy Central, which was the cable company that aired South Park, TV Funhouse did a lot of things that the SNL segment were never allowed to do since it was on NBC, which was a network television station (and therefore under FCC guidelines). Don't let the intro and theme song fool you, this is not really a kid's cartoon show. Each episode has the Anipals go on crazy adventures, and they can involve intense violence, use of blood, and sexual content. One scene in the Chinese New Year's episode actually involves a panda puppet being blown up by a Chinese firework, causing blood and guts to fly all over the set, and two episodes feature Triumph The Insult Comic Dog.
And of course, when we have an adult parody of a kids' show, we have to have cartoons. Yes, there are cartoons as well as some spoofs of educational content and commercials. Most of these are new content created for the show in order to take advantage of the TV-MA rating (one cartoon, Jokamel, is a Pokémon parody involving Joe Camel, complete with fake commercials for merchandise, and Wonderman is an adult parody of the 1940's Superman cartoons). The Christmas episode would actually reuse the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon parody from an 1998 episode of SNL, but there may be other reused cartoons.
Sadly, as the title of the review points out, this show was short-lived, only getting eight episodes before being cancelled. It's been said that Comedy Central was not happy that each episode went over budget, and Robert Smigel has expressed how difficult the show was to work on, especially the puppet segments. It is a lost gem that any adult should watch, just be sure the kids are in bed first.
Why is it adult? Because it's rated TV-MA (and some episodes had a warning about it). Airing on Comedy Central, which was the cable company that aired South Park, TV Funhouse did a lot of things that the SNL segment were never allowed to do since it was on NBC, which was a network television station (and therefore under FCC guidelines). Don't let the intro and theme song fool you, this is not really a kid's cartoon show. Each episode has the Anipals go on crazy adventures, and they can involve intense violence, use of blood, and sexual content. One scene in the Chinese New Year's episode actually involves a panda puppet being blown up by a Chinese firework, causing blood and guts to fly all over the set, and two episodes feature Triumph The Insult Comic Dog.
And of course, when we have an adult parody of a kids' show, we have to have cartoons. Yes, there are cartoons as well as some spoofs of educational content and commercials. Most of these are new content created for the show in order to take advantage of the TV-MA rating (one cartoon, Jokamel, is a Pokémon parody involving Joe Camel, complete with fake commercials for merchandise, and Wonderman is an adult parody of the 1940's Superman cartoons). The Christmas episode would actually reuse the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon parody from an 1998 episode of SNL, but there may be other reused cartoons.
Sadly, as the title of the review points out, this show was short-lived, only getting eight episodes before being cancelled. It's been said that Comedy Central was not happy that each episode went over budget, and Robert Smigel has expressed how difficult the show was to work on, especially the puppet segments. It is a lost gem that any adult should watch, just be sure the kids are in bed first.