Moonbeam City
Moonbeam City is an American adult animated sitcom created by Scott Gairdner starring the voices of Elizabeth Banks, Rob Lowe, Kate Mara and Will Forte. It premiered on Comedy Central on September 16, 2015. On March 30, 2016, the series was cancelled after one season.
Characters
Main Characters
- Dazzle Novak : Protagonist and Moonbeam City P.D. detective, despite being especially unqualified for the job due to poor impulse control, horrendous reasoning skills, ridiculous libido, and ego, and even worse aim. He gets sidetracked from assignments to tend to anything he finds far superior. Any success is normally due to luck or the assistance of others. Has an odd talent for invention and design, and is the son of stuntman Razzle Novak. Dazzle's mother died from cancer when he was a child. He has personal animosity towards Rad in his attempts to outdo him as a cop, even embarrassing him on a personal level.
- Pizzaz Miller : Police chief, and Dazzle's irascible supervisor. Though she is sometimes at odds with Dazzle due to his shoddy police work and defiance of authority, she fails to harshly discipline him for even the most severe infractions due to an intense mutual attraction and affection between the two. It is later learned that Pizzaz is an heiress to Moonbeam City's founder, laser prospecting mega-millionaire, Vector Azimuth Miller. Pizzaz also has four abusive and conniving sisters: Charisma, Panache, Sophistica, and Accoutrement. When passionate or angry, Pizzaz narrows her eyes and a slanted window blind-like shadow appears over her face and body, regardless of the location and ambient lighting.
- Chrysalis Zirconia Tate : Dazzle's rookie colleague. A former lab tech, Chrysalis is the polar opposite of Dazzle, and often the unintentional victim of his irresponsibility and poor impulse control. Chrysalis' job usually entails the detective work and technical aspects of the job, and she is often blamed by Pizzaz for Dazzle and Rad's inept behavior. Chrysalis is the daughter of eccentric Naval Commander Blade H. Tate.
- Radward "Rad" Cunningham : Dazzle's equally incompetent, yet even stupider childish rival/teammate from Canada in the Moonbeam PD. He fears authority more than Dazzle, and is prone to even greater lapses of judgment, usually when trying to outdo or outsmart Dazzle. While initially seeming fierce and threatening in the Pilot episode, Rad is eventually shown to be incredibly cowardly and immature, though not without moments of unexpected bravery. The series finale reveals that Rad is the biological son of the billionaire computer founders of Canadian computer company Flamingo Computers, but was kidnapped as a toddler by the con artist couple who raised him. He has a unique condition called "Mono-Toeism" which causes his right foot to have only one giant toe. He is shown to be very poor as well as perverted.
Recurring Characters
- Genesis Jones : News anchor who appears in every episode. He often acts as more of a shameless announcer or sensationalist rather than a real journalist.
- Vex Mullery : The host of CrimeZappers, a crime reenactment TV show that the Moonbeam officers gather to watch weekly. He also appears in a later episode as the host of an initiation video at CopCon.
Production
Episodes
Broadcast
Internationally, the series premiered in Australia on November 15, 2015, on The Comedy Channel.Reception
On December 1, 2015, Moonbeam City was nominated for an Annie Award for Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production, but lost to The Simpsons.The first season holds a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews. Its consensus states: "Moonbeam City wildly overestimates the effectiveness of its attempts at over-the-top humor, leaving viewers with little more than a derivative disappointment". On Metacritic, the series holds a 52% indicating mixed or average reviews.
Mike Hale of The [New York Times] stated that "The look of 'Moonbeam City' may catch your eye, but after a while, you may be tempted to say, along with Ms. Banks, 'I will bury you so deep the world’s smartest worms couldn’t find you. He also stated that the pop-culture references and satire were forced and the dialogue "tries so hard you can see it sweat". Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter claimed that the show would be able to stand "in a world without Archer" and called it thin and with limited potential. Bob Sassone of The A.V. Club gave it a C+, calling it "more clever than funny with Archer vibes". Brian Lowry of Variety claims that the show settles more for being puerile than clever, making it "less than dazzling". Katy Waldman of Slates review was scathing, stating that the series "is so willfully dumb that it might make you wonder if it is meta-dumb".