Allen Gregory
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Allen Gregory is a short-lived animated series that aired on Fox in 2011 from October 30 to December 18. It was created by Jonah Hill, Andrew Mogel, and Jarrad Paul.
Plot
Pretentious 7-year-old Allen Gregory De Longpre (Jonah Hill) doesn't see himself as a child but as an intelligent and worldly young man. He lives in a loft with his father, Richard, Richard's partner Jeremy, and his adopted Cambodian sister, Julie where his father has home-schooled him. But now, Allen Gregory must leave the nest to attend elementary school and deal with the challenges of relating to kids his own age and teachers who don’t understand that he is more than the child he appears to be.
Why It's Not Very Intelligent
- Allen himself is a very unlikable protagonist (through, as opposed to his father Richard, he's essentially an adult in a child’s body). His father Richard is even worse, as he's a despicable man-child who's even more of a malicious jerk than his son.
- Richard, who's gay, forced his partner Jeremy (who's straight) to abandon his real family in order to be his glorified "trophy husband". This "relationship" is offensive to LGBT individuals and victims of abusive relationships.
- Allen is sexually obsessed with his principal, Mrs. Gottlieb, which is just sick, creepy, and super pedophilic, especially considering he's 7 years old and she's in her 70s.
- In the second episode of the series, "1 Night in Gottlieb", Allen claims to have made a sex tape with her. The fact that nobody tried to call any form of law enforcement to stop Allen from starring in child pornography is absolutely mid-boggling.
- Very stilted animation that tries to imitate the animation style of King of the Hill, but instead nosedives straight into the uncanny valley. Not helping is the fact that the show was animated by Bento Box Entertainment, the same studio behind the other worst adult animation ever.
- Not just Allen Gregory and Richard, but most of the other characters are mean-spirited and unlikable, the easiest example being Joel, due to his bullying behavior towards Allen.
- The character designs can range from passable to absolutely hideous. That being said, Allen himself looks more like a ventriloquist dummy than an actual human, and Julie's massive forehead makes her look like a rejected character from Code Lyoko since the show has many characters with large foreheads.
- There are lots of unfunny jokes about rape, AIDS, racism, and pedophilia.
- The rest of the episodes are just as bad, like "Gay School Dance" and "Full Blown Maids".
- Gina and Jeremy are butt-monkeys to the extreme.
- One episode ends with Gina getting molested by the superintendent, and this is played for laughs!
- None of the kids, except for Patrick, sound like actual grade-school children in the slightest.
- It contains some gross and revolting scenes, like the closeup of the principal's butt-crack and not to mention, the first's episode's conflict revolved around Allen soiling his pants in front of his class.
- The show apparently thinks that Allen is sympathetic when he's anything but.
- The show tries to make Julie unsympathetic but fails.
Intelligent Qualities
- Julie (Allen's adopted sister), Jeremy (Richard's partner and "trophy husband"), and Patrick (Allen's friend) are the only likable characters in the show (even though Julie wasn't intended to be likable). Gina and Mrs. Gottlieb, while still unlikable, are far more tolerable than Allen himself.
- Passable voice acting, despite a whole slew of wasted talent, with Jonah Hill giving a surprisingly great performance as Allen.
- This show fulfilled Jonah Hill's dream of creating a cartoon alongside The Simpsons, although not in a good way considering all of the problems mentioned above.
- Decent theme song.
- Sheila, Allen's (false) biological mother, is the only character to actually have the nerve to call out him for his awful behavior.
Reception
The series received extremely negative reviews from critics and viewers alike, who criticized the characters and humor. Chris Swanson of WhatCulture gave the pilot episode a rating of 0.5 out of 5, saying "There is nothing charming, witty, or interesting about this show. It’s just one horribly stupid, cringe-inducing moment after another with characters who are truly loathsome and unpleasant." Robert Bianca of USA Today also gave the show a negative review, saying it was "nasty and brutish", "rarely funny", and made him "hate every character except Julie." Even the show's animators hated it from day one, although they enjoyed their time together.
Fox had little faith in the show. As a result, they only gave it seven episodes instead of the planned 13 episodes like most shows. After the series' end, Fox deleted all references to it off their website and from digital downloads. Fox pulled the series from almost all digital distributors months after the series' cancellation. The series isn’t even available on Blu-Ray and DVD and has never resurfaced on Hulu. As of now, the United Kingdom is the only country in the world that still has the series for sale.
The show has a rating of 4.3/10 on IMDb, a 12% critic rating and a 19% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 40 out of 100 on Metacritic.
Trivia
- After the show's cancellation, Allen Gregory made a cameo in Family Guy's season 12 episode "Boopa-Dee-Bappa-Dee".
- Despite Fox airing it right between episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy, and not the dreaded 7:00-7:30 time slot (which is infamous for its preemption by sporting events), it still struggled to get any audience to watch this show.
- The show's logo was briefly seen in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XXVII" during the "600" song.
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