Breadwinners
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Breadwinners is a Flash-animated television series that aired on Nickelodeon. It was originally an internet video on YouTube before Nickelodeon took an interest and decided to turn it into an animated series. The series debuted in February 2014 and ended in August 2016. Reruns were on Nicktoons from 2016 to 2018 and again in 2021.
Plot
SwaySway and Buhdeuce are carefree ducks who fly around in a rocket van delivering bread to their customers. The best friends live together on their home planet, Pondgea, and get into all sorts of "riduckulous" adventures. SwaySway is the leader of the duo and, even though he doesn't always use the best judgment, he's a pro when it comes to flying the van... and crashing it. Buhdeuce is a klutzy duck, but he's loyal to SwaySway and has a lot of heart. Together, the friends have fun all the time while making bread deliveries.
Why It's Quazy Cuz It Can't
- The animation may be fluid, but it never really goes above average in terms of quality and looks crude. It also tends to go off-model.
- The character designs are lazy and poorly drawn. It comes to the point where it looks like they were drawn by a 9-year-old; notably, SwaySway and Buhdeuce are supposed to be ducks but look more like mutant green peas, slime blobs, or frogs (unironically, they own a pet frog named Jelly) with orange lips; the background characters, who are also ducks, are made from stock photography. This technique was also used in Fish Hooks.
- This also happened before with Chop Socky Chooks, in which the main trio is supposed to be chickens when they look more like bowling pin creatures with lips.
- Most of the episodes have weak/boring storylines.
- It mainly overuses unfunny gross-out and toilet humor, mostly consisting of butt and fart jokes.
- The show relies heavily on butt humor. Notably, the main duo twerk in almost every episode and Buhdeuce has a "special attack" move in which he punches people with his buttocks, which is referred to as a "booty kick".
- In "Bye Bye Booty", Buhdeuce's butt comes to life and separates from him. Sounds familiar?
- In "Frog Day Afternoon" and "Adventures in Big Baby Bun Sitting", Big Baby Buns and his parents each have three buttocks, which is disturbing to look at.
- "Rodeo Ducks" shows Buhdeuce having an enlarged butt in front of the audience.
- "PB&J" ends with the main characters doing a "farty punch", which is just utterly nonsensical.
- In "Shrunken Ducks" SwaySway and Buhdeuce climb Rambamboo's butt, causing her to hit a lamppost.
- On the topic of gross-out humor, the violence is extremely realistic, featuring everything from skin peeled onwards to even Sway Sway and Buhdeuce chasing T-Midi with a chainsaw in one episode. As a result, it feels disturbing to the point where the show feels more like an adult animated series than a children's animated series.
- The show relies heavily on butt humor. Notably, the main duo twerk in almost every episode and Buhdeuce has a "special attack" move in which he punches people with his buttocks, which is referred to as a "booty kick".
- Despite decent voice acting, it's hammy for the most part, with Buhdeuce's voice (Eric Bauza) being one notable example.
- Most of the characters are one-dimensional and unlikeable.
- The main characters, SwaySway and Buhdeuce, are incredibly obnoxious and annoying idiots who are way too hyperactive for their good. They aren't afraid of breaking laws and acting flat-out creepy, with one instance showing the duo chasing others with chainsaws and another being breaking into a girls-only summer camp for SwaySway to force Jenny Quackles to love him in one episode.
- Oonski the Great is an awful villain as he has no other motivation rather than breaking through everyone's homes for their jewelry. He'll fall in love with every object he sees with female attributes.
- Jenny Quackles is a disgusting and pointless love interest with no personality at all, and the fact that she may be A LOT younger than Sway Sway and Buhdeuce (evidence via her going to a summer camp in one episode, which kids go to more often than adults) makes Sway Sway and Jenny Quackles' romantic relationship seem incredibly unnerving, sickening, creepy and pedophilic.
- Annoying theme song.
- The show is extremely hyperactive, to the point that there are not enough moments where the characters calm down or talk in a normal way.
- The pacing in many episodes is too fast.
- A lot of ideas feel too similar to Fanboy & Chum Chum, which in return in a rip-off of SpongeBob SquarePants (though not directly ripping it off).
- The distributors of the show don't take criticism. For example, RebelTaxi gave this show a negative review but it got taken down by Viacom, despite fair-use.
- They even took down the original pilot on YouTube, despite them not owning the rights to it.
- The writers of the show just ignore criticism. While Sanjay and Craig started badly too, it got a little bit better over time because its writers listened to criticism. While this show improved in Season 2, that isn't saying much because the writers didn't seem to care.
- It tries too hard to appeal to modern-day children. For example, Buhdeuce will say "Yeah boi!" in some scenes.
- Some of its episodes are very inappropriate and disturbing for younger audiences:
- The Love Loaf episode. It contains a scene where it is implied that SwaySay is trying to rape Jenny at the end, which is highly inappropriate for its target audience. In the episode, SwaySway, who has a crush on Jenny Quackles, tries to force her to eat the love loaf (essentially a love drug disguised as bread) so that she'll fall in love with him, which conveys a cruel message to children that "drugging someone will make them fall in love with you" and encourages sexual harassment.
- There’s also one episode that promotes mechanophilia in the episode "Quazy for Vanessa". During the song about Oonski's love for Vanessa (which is the Breadwinners’ rocket van disguised as a girl), he actually wanted to raise a family with the van. It even shows the duck doctor shocked at the newborn rocket-van/beaver hybrid, especially SwaySway and Buhduece!
- The names of SwaySway and Buhdeuce are downright laughable, just like Fanboy & Chum Chum.
- Like with The Brothers Flub, SwaySway and Buhdeuce's relationship became a mess in Season 2. SwaySway is controlling and careless towards Buhdeuce and Buhdeuce outright torments SwaySway in later episodes.
- The series finale Freaky Finger Bread wasn't a good way to end the series.
Redeeming Qualities
- Creative and interesting concepts, notably the Rocket Van and the "level-up" concept, as well as the premise of SwaySway and Buhdeuce delivering bread to other ducks.
- As mentioned before, the animation, despite looking crude, is fluid and nice to look at and is at least better than the animation in the pilot, since the show was animated by Titmouse Inc.
- The soundtrack is pretty catchy since is done mostly in an "8-bit" retro style.
- T-Midi, Chief Rambamboo, Jelly, Ketta, and the Bread Maker are the only likable characters even though they are also sometimes jerkish to the duo that didn't do anything wrong to them.
- SwaySway and Buhdeuce do get comeuppance for their actions.
- Despite what WIQCIC #4 says, there are still a handful of funny moments.
- Speaking of which, some nonsensical moments come out as funny, like in the episode "Quazy for Vanessa" when half of Buhduece’s face gets scraped on a building and SwaySway tells him to shake it off, and then his face is completely cured.
- Some good episodes like Diner Ducks, Pizzawinners, and Night of the Living Bread
- SwaySway and Buhdeuce were slightly more tolerable in the pilot.
- The show also slightly improved in Season 2 thanks to better writing with SwaySway and Buhdeuce being a lot more likable than they were in Season 1, though flaws remain.
- Despite its violence and gross-out humor, it still feels like a kids' show because there’s no blood, overtly grotesque wounds, or fetishes in the show, unlike Mr. Meaty and The Adventures of Kid Danger which feel nothing like some kids' show on Nick.
- The character designs while lazy, are admittedly cute (besides the photoshopped ducks).
Episodes With Their Own Pages
- "Love Loaf"
- "Adventures in Big Baby Bun Sitting"
- "Bye Bye Booty"
Reception
Breadwinners was critically panned by critics and audiences alike, and it's widely considered to be one of the worst Nickelodeon shows ever made. The show currently holds a 2.6/10 on IMDb and a 2.8/10 on tv.com making it the third lowest-rated Nickelodeon show on that site, behind The Adventures of Kid Danger, Fred: The Show, Awesomeness TV, etc. and it was criticized for its violence, annoying characters, and bad morals.
Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media assessed its reliance on toilet humor as questionable while giving credit to the strength of the protagonists' friendship. She enjoyed the bread-related puns sometimes uttered by characters but acknowledged that "they're not likely to strike the same chord of hilarity with your kids." New York Daily News writer David Hinckley linked its style of humor as enticing to its target demographic. He ultimately stated that it "sprinkles in a few grownup jokes, particularly bread-related puns, but it aims mostly at the younger set."
Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Lloyd found its visual style oddly pleasant and identified a slew of potential influences and references. While he saw the humor as "loud and often gross," the result was "basically genial." Tori Michel of About.com dubbed its use of mixed media interesting, yet headache-inducing for parents. While she called the concept and the characters "definitely original," she stressed that its crude humor may call for avoiding it altogether for some parents. Tom Conroy of Media Life Magazine wrote poorly of the show, finding it unfunny throughout. He specified its "noisy and violent" content as too much for little kids as well as being "too stupid for big kids."
Trivia
- As of Fall 2020, the series started to be available to stream on CBS All Access (which changed its name to Paramount+ on March 4, 2021).
- Eric Bauza, voice actor of Buhdeuce, also voiced Master Frown from Unikitty!, Belly Bag from Uncle Grandpa, Stimpy from Adult Party Cartoon,, Joey from Atomic Puppet, and The Banana Splits from The Banana Splits Movie/
- Steve Borst, one of the creators of the show, also worked as a writer for both MAD and Teen Titans Go!
- A possible inspiration for this show was probably The Brothers Flub. SwaySway and Fraz are the blue-clad and mentally crazy protagonists, while Buhdeuce and Guapo are the red-clad, chubby, food-loving sidekicks. They also have flying vehicles that help them deliver stuff. They even have similar episodes like 'Double Feature' and 'Big Screen Buhdeuce', 'Flubs Overeasy' and 'Diner Ducks'.
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