By Ned Jordan
Political satire is one of the lowest hanging fruit on the tree of comedy.
Politicians basically write the humor themselves you just can't make up some
of the stuff they come up with. And when it comes to George W. Bush... well,
love or hate him, you have to admit that he's relatively easy to lampoon. With
all it has going for it, you'd think that Lil Bush would be a comedic slam dunk,
but it has trouble lifting a decidedly unfunny air ball anywhere near the
basket. Here's a show that was given a battleship, allowed to pull right next to
the barn, and yet not only managed to miss but also to knock a hole in the side
of its own ship.
The premise of Lil Bush has Bush as an eight year old kid attending a
Washington, DC area school while his Dad is serving as president. Lil Bush hangs
out with his pals, Lil Rice, Lil Cheney, and Lil Rumsfeld and together they plot
on how to get the best of the Lil Dems which include Lil Hillary and Lil Obama
(yes, the 'Lil's get old really fast). Confused? So are the writers, who can't
seem to decide which decade's politics they want to try to lampoon. This lack of
focus would be forgivable if the show was funny, but it's far from it. The show
was barely running on fumes in its first season in its second it has run out
of gas and everyone's out pushing the car... and the gas station's in the other
direction. There's even an episode here in which Lil Bush finds himself with
multiple dates to the school dance. How desperate for ideas do you have to be to
start ripping off plots from 1950's sitcoms?
Take away the political characters and replace them with generic cartoon
kids, and you'd be left with a tired, derivative, and utterly humorless show
that wouldn't last more than a week on Saturday mornings. The inclusion of Bush
may be enough to pique the interest of the more adamant Bush haters, but it's
doubtful they'll return to this DVD set much once Bush is out of office. How
popular are Dan Quayle skits or Bill Clinton jokes these days?
Final Rating:
