Almost Naked Animals

Almost Naked Animals
Fair warning: Theme song may get stuck in your head.
Genre: Comedy Running Time: 22 minutes Country: Canada Release Date: January 7, 2011 – May 22, 2013 Network(s): YTV (Canada) Cartoon Network (US) CITV (UK) Disney XD (International) Nickelodeon (Netherlands) Created by: Noah Z. Jones Distributed by: 9 Story Media Group Starring: Robert Tinkler Howard Jerome Emilie-Claire Barlow Seasons: 3 Episodes: 52

Almost Naked Animals is a Canadian animated series created by Noah Z. Jones, creator of both Fish Hooks and Pickle and Peanut. It first premiered on January 7, 2011, and ended on May 22, 2013. It aired on Cartoon Network in the US and Disney XD internationally, as well on Nickelodeon in the Netherlands and CITV in the UK.

Plot

The show's main setting is the Banana Cabana, a seemingly ordinary, run-of-the-mill beachfront hotel. What's not ordinary about the hotel is who (or what) runs it -- animals who are all shaved and wearing underwear. The Banana Cabana's top dog is Howie, who would barely be able to keep things under control without his crew helping him out. That crew includes jittery desk clerk Octo, sugary-sweet activities director Bunny, and duck-of-all-trades Duck.

Why It Needs to Put Some Clothes On

1. The title alone is unappealing and inappropriate as it makes it seem more like an adult cartoon. As it states, all of the characters are animals who are shaved and only wear scantily-clad underwear. As Mr. Enter pointed out, just say "I watched 'Almost Naked Animals' today" and considering how obscure this show is, you'll probably get weird looks.
   • Plus, even the animals who don’t have any fur, feathers, wool, etc. are shaved (Octo and Narwhal for example). So wouldn’t their skin be peeled from the shaving instead?
   • Almost all of the characters have nipples (male characters only) and navels, which are gross to look at considering most of the animals they are based on don’t have nipples or navels, to begin with.
   • Almost all of the female characters that wear bras and panties have visible lady parts sticking out of their bras, which makes for very uncomfortable scenes, especially for a kids' show.
2. Excessively disgusting and unfunny toilet and gross-out humor, with constant fluids, farts, soiled underwear, etc. There's also inappropriate risqué humor as well, such as a scene in the first episode where Howie lands on a trampoline bar on his crotch.
3. Ugly and uncanny character designs that are hard to look at and can even give the character designs from The Brothers Grunt a run for their money. All of the characters' shaved appearances are incredibly disturbing and repulsive to look at.
4. An annoying theme song with nonsensical lyrics, especially with some consisting of repeated “ay-ay-ays”. It's so annoying that it makes the Fanboy & Chum Chum theme song sound decent.
5. Bland, annoying, and poorly done voice acting, especially for Howie.
6. Some characters are either annoying or unlikable:
   • Howie, the main character, is an incredibly annoying and too dumb to the live-type protagonist who is oblivious to anything that happens around him, with an uncanny smile. He even started this hotel in the first place.
   • Piggy is portrayed as a Russian stereotype who mostly gets angry and talks with a nearly offensive Russian accent.
   • Sloth is a one-dimensional character with little to no personality who has a crush on Howie.
   • Poodle is a mean-spirited and very bland antagonist who wants to take over or destroy the Banana Cabana for no reason. She also qualifies as a Mean Popular Girl and has little to no redeeming qualities.
   • Batty, though not unlikable, is a very generic "evil minion" who is also a Butt-Monkey character.
7. Just like the theme song, the background music is bland and/or annoying.
8. Mediocre and lazy-looking flash animation that's stiff and often has errors.
9. Multiple continuity errors. For example, it's often brought the reason why the animals are even half-naked is that Howie decided so at the hotel. However, it's shown that some animals are half-naked even if they don't go to the hotel, such as the chicken in "Cool Paw Howie".
10. The color scheme is very ugly, consisting of disgusting and grotesque colors.
11. The designs of the title cards are very creepy and uncanny to look at.
12. All of the characters (except Howie, Dirk Danger, and Captain Fizzy) are named after the animals that they resemble, which is utterly lazy.
13. Hypocrisy: The writers, creators, directors, producers, and distributors, as well as some promotional material of the series guilted and/or tricked people by saying that the show would "make people laugh so hard". In reality, it actually made people sick, grossed out, disgusted, or angry, showing how the stupidity from the creators of the series/promotional material have reached its nadir.
14. The almost naked-ness of the animals is almost never brought up, and barely has an impact. The show could be fully clothed animals or even have fur, or even have the characters depicted as humans with or without clothes on instead, and nothing would change.
    • Not only that, as mentioned in WINTPSCO #9, the main reason why animals are even half-naked is that Howie decided so at the beachside hotel, which is a pretty flimsy excuse, to begin with, since in real life people rarely if ever, walk around the hotel half-naked unless they're coming from the beach/swimming pool in their swimwear or vice-versa, and for starters, nobody walks around the hotel in only their underwear due to obvious indecency reasons in real life.
15. The show has plenty of bad episodes that are either gross, mean-spirited, or both, such as:
    • "Island Animals" (the pilot, which already started this off on a bad note)
    • "It's My Party" (which started the show on a sour note)
    • "The Ear Wax Elf"
    • "What Would Batty Do?"
    • "The Duck Vinci Code"
    • "No Howies Allowed" (The most notable Howie torture episode)
    • "Cool Paw Howie"
16. Overall, it's a disgusting and pretty mean-spirited show that cemented Noah Z. Jones' reputation as a cartoon creator, with the release of the already mediocre Fish Hooks, the also mediocre The 7D afterward (though arguably the least bad of all of his other creations), and then, of course, the infamous Pickle and Peanut.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Octo, Bunny, Duck, Narwhal, and Mayor Trout are decent and likable characters on the show. Duck, especially, because everything that comes out of his mouth is hilarious.
2. The background designs are passable.
3. The show improved a little in the third season, although this isn't saying much.
4. Some funny moments here and there.
5. The show has its fair share of episodes that are pretty good and decent, such as:
   • "The Sun Howie Always Wanted"
   • "Hambo 1: Galactic Super Swine of the Wild West" (the last episode of the show, which was a very decent way to end the show)
6. The premise of animals running a hotel on an island is pretty interesting, but executed very poorly. It could have been done more well had the animals not been half-naked and had better humor.
7. Despite the show's unattractive color scheme, it’s surprisingly vivid to look at sometimes (albeit in an admittedly freaky way).

Reception

Almost Naked Animals received overwhelmingly negative reviews from most viewers and critics alike. It has a 3/10 on IMDb and had a 2.4/10 on TV.com. Surprisingly and weirdly enough, some critics found it decent, with a 3/5 on Common Sense Media and a Gemini Award nomination (the Canadian equivalent of an Emmy).

Trivia

• The show was based upon an art website that Noah Z. Jones created back in 2005.
  • In said art site, Octo's name was initially "Octopus".
• It is one of the few shows to premiere on Cartoon Network to not have any promotional videos of any sort.

Episodes With Their Own Pages

• Hurricane Seasoning
• Ear Wax Elf

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