Frisky Dingo
Season 2
Created by Adam Reed, Matt Thompson
Starring Marsha Crenshaw, Stuart Culpepper, Mr. Ford, Killer Mike, Kate Miller
Warner Home Video
Release Date: January 6, 2009

Fans of Adult Swim’s Frisky Dingo should be happy to know that the second season of the series is now out on DVD. Created by Adam Reed and Matt Thompson, who also created Adult Swim hit SeaLab 2021,the series focuses on supervillain Killface and his encounters with his arch enemy Xander Crews aka Awesome X.

When we last left Killface in Season One, his death ray, the Annihilatrix, was activated and Earth looked like it was doomed. Lucky for us, the Annihilatrix was a dud. It stopped working 5 minutes into its launch sequence but not before it pushes the Earth inches away from the Sun, effectively saving us from global warming. Killface is unexpectedly viewed as a hero, so what does one do when they have so much of the public in their favor? Why, you run for President of course.

A cross between Arrested Development and The Office, this totally irrelevant, and at times in poor taste, adult-oriented cartoon is pretty funny and I really enjoyed it. If you are a fan of Sealab 2021 like I am, you will definitely like this cartoon. The format, humor, and overall presentation of the series is an exact copy of Sealab. The dialogue is heavy on catchphrases, awkward pauses, and over the top violence. I also like the cartoon’s gung ho attitude on comedy. Nothing is sacred as everything from racism to the Bible is mocked openly with reckless abandon. The violence is pretty graphic for a cartoon but it is so absurd you can’t really take it too seriously.

While Killface and his crew are pretty funny, I enjoyed watching his arch enemy, Xander Crews, a lot more. Modeled after Batman and Iron Man, Crews is basically a frat boy version of these two heroes and twice as stupid. Utterly selfish and forever childish, Crews basically has no redeemable values but it is for that reason he is so likable. He is literally a walking, talking ID. Everything from his love for Fred Dryer of the 80’s TV show Hunter (who he tries to woo as his Vice-President but his incompetent secretary keeps calling up a Fred Hunter instead) to getting himself checked for cancer that he thinks he may have “contracted” from a former fling, should make you really not like him but he is so stupid that you can’t help but laugh at him. It is too bad that 70/30 productions, the folks who make this cartoon, are no longer in business. I think a Xander Crews spin-off would have been funny.

I do not think that there is a lot that I did not like. Like I said, I enjoyed the creators’ previous work so I had no problems getting into this, but if I was your average cartoon viewer, I might not like how “out there” the comedy is. You really need to have an open mind when it comes to watching this DVD and while some may find it hilarious to watch an overgrown man-boy fighting with a man who is trying to have coitus with him, some might find it just dumb. It is dumb but some people find just the right amount of dumb to be pretty funny.

The DVD is not filled with any special extras. There is a short featuring Crews’ gang of helpers, the Xtacles, that is a lead-in for their spin-off series. There is also a commercial advertising, oddly enough, Frisky Dingo Season Two DVD

Frisky Dingo Season Two is definitely not for the average cartoon watcher. The language is crude, the situations are down right sophomoric, and the humor is very blue. However, if you are fan of this sort of comedy or want to watch something that is funnier than Family Guy, you can do a lot worse than Frisky Dingo.