Creature Comforts: Winter, The Zoo

The latest and last episode of Creature Comforts displayed a fatal weakness in the program's concept: if the human interviews are not entertaining, neither is the show. While the animation is great and the animals are adorable and funny with their settings and actions, it's what's being said that's at the heart of the show.

"Winter" was a very boring segment, with hardly a chuckle to be found. Nothing said really stood out as a fresh or unique take on the winter months. It's cold, I get it. Straightforward juxtapositions of voice to animal didn't improve things. The man who got very, very cold was presented as a penguin on a floating piece of ice. And the man talking about jumping into cold water as part of a polar bear club was, in fact, a polar bear. The cleverest moment, and only real highlight of this segment, came with a groundhog talking scientifically about how the tilt and rotation of the Earth affects the climate. Turns out this groundhog was the famous Punxsutawney Phil who determines how many more weeks of winter we'll have based on the sight of his shadow. This was the only smart twist in segment one.

The second half of the show, "The Zoo," had a significantly higher number of laughs. However, the idea of taking people's interviews about their living conditions-- in retirement homes, jail, etc.-- and turning it into animals talking about living in the zoo seemed oddly familiar. The old folks were especially entertaining. The elder lions, slowly talking into the microphone, were a hoot. I also loved the Abbot and Costello like exchange between a hard of hearing warthog and the interviewer: "Tell me about the food here?" "About what?" "The food." "Fuse?" "Food." "What is 'fuse'?"

Stealing the show, however, was another visit to the Panda Breeding Facility, with the sassy female panda having a war of words with the amorous male panda. An entire episode devoted to this group would not be a horrible idea.

Padding out the half-hour were animals talking about what celebrities they've been told they look like. This really didn't use the format of the show very well. The first bit, with a pug-looking dog saying she looks like Jane Fonda was cute, because a pug-looking dog has no resemblance to Jane Fonda. But that's about as far as the concept could go-- animals saying they look like someone who, obviously, they don't look like.

Still, I can't complain too much. Creature Comforts is still great to look at. The visuals remain smart and creative, with all sorts of fun background action taking place. The deer using several helium-filled balloons to float away to freedom stood out. I also enjoyed seeing the polar bears doing vodka ice shots while another talked about doing whatever they can to cope with the bitter cold.

Creature Comforts: Self Image, Wingin' It, and Art

With its second episode, Creature Comforts continued to showcase its unique format (using excerpts from real person interviews and placing them in the mouths of a wide variety of animated animals) and provided me with another half hour of fun, easy-going summer viewing.

The episode was again divided into three segments, each dedicated to a certain topic. The first topic, "Self-Image," found animals as varied as cats and condors, owls and rabbits talking about their appearance and the appearance of others. At the top of the show, a male cat considered himself a ten on the good-looks scale, while his female companion said she didn't think anyone could think of themselves as a ten except Sean Connery. "Of course, these days, not so much anymore." Another highlight of this segment included a fly caught in a spider's web, each saying the other looked good-- the fly as a device to charm his way out of the spider's grasp, the spider referencing how good the fly looked to eat. Of course, the real charm of this situation comes from the fact that when the human voices were making these statements they were simply complimenting each other, not concerned about where they fell in the food chain.

In the second segment of this episode, I quickly forgot that the dialogue was coming from off-the-cuff remarks made by humans and simply allowed myself to believe these were the words of the animals that were talking. This was made very easy by the perfect stop-motion animation of the characters as well as the pairing of characters to topic, specifically birds talking about flying. There were a number of very funny moments in the "Wingin' It" segment that almost had me thinking this was scripted television. Those scenes included the one-legged, arm-in-a-sling cardinal talking about performing aerial tricks and how any landing you walk away from is a good one. The cardinal then proceeded to fall off of his perch. Another standout was the baby bald eagles (voiced by children) talking about how scary flying is and how one shouldn't look down when soaring at such great heights. The biggest laugh of the episode came from the penguin attempting to describe how birds fly, pseudo-scientifically talking about how the air flows above and below their wings and it's their constant flapping that keeps them in flight. "I don't know. That's just me assuming."

The last segment, simply entitled "Art," highlighted how the choice of setting, not just the choice of animal, added to the comedic effect of relaying these interviews. The dogs talking about how much they enjoyed art were not just dogs, they were dogs playing poker! The flies talking about pop art were wisely placed on top of a soup can, a la Andy Warhol's famous print. The program also represented two women fawning so sincerely over what makes great art as two pigeons resting on a statue… that they eventually pooped on. The dogs, flies and pigeons could literally have been situated anywhere in this animated world, but Creature Comforts is proving it's a much smarter show than that.