Vile Chozen soils FX
01/13/14 11:05 AM
Premiering: Monday, Jan. 13th at 9:30 p.m. (central) on FX
Starring: Bobby Moynihan, Michael Pena, Hannibal Buress, Kathryn Hahn, Danny McBride, Nick Swardson, Ike Barnholz, Cliff “Method Man” Smith
Produced by: Tom Brady, Danny McBride, Jody Hill, David Gordon Green, Brandon James, Adam Reed, Matt Thompson
By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
It’s not all that easy to make the ribald Archer seem like a Mickey Mouse cartoon.
But FX and its latter day “Fearless” motto have done that and then some with Chozen. It’s an aggressively profane companion cartoon series about a volatile gay white rapper hardened by 10 years in prison after being set up by a former ally known as Phantasm. Sample rap: “Bow down before the glorious one. Your face is the target. My dong is the gun.”
I mean, really.
Archer’s Season 5 and Chozen’s first one launch on Monday, Jan. 13th. The latter series, with Saturday Night Live’s Bobby Moynihan very loudly voicing the title character, joins FX’s spy spoof with a TV MA rating for “Graphic Violence, Explicit Sexual Activity, Crude/Indecent Language.”
The worst offender on that front isn’t even Chozen. In the first two half-hours it’s Jimmy, a sub-scumbag voiced by co-executive producer Danny McBride (better known as the star of HBO’s Eastbound & Down, which ended its run last fall).
Jimmy’s a bearded, coke-sniffing garbage pail whose main activity is snapping intimate shots of women for posting on various obscene websites such as . . . well, never mind. Suffice it to say that he manages to reel off the words “dick, jizz” and “cum” in one short riff near the end of Episode 2. Guy’s a wordsmith.
FX at some point generally swerves off various roads to perdition with its adult roster of weekly dramas and comedies. It’s home to first-rate series such as Justified, The Americans and Louie. But the network errs grievously on the side of gratuitous with Chozen, which just shouldn’t be on anyone’s air.
Brain-dead male teens without any social skills or purpose in their lives might find this a highly entertaining diversion from their violent video games. One can imagine Slacker 69 laughing uproariously at the line, “Phantasm ain’t ca ca. I know fools be playin’ his butt hole like a saxophone.”
Someone needs an accordion lesson.
GRADE: F
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