Did everyone love MTV’s Daria as much as I did? She was my nerdy, bestecaled, monotoned, cynical, middle school cartoon crush, who I occassionaly still visit via MTV’s terrible streaming video player. Anyways, Atom‘s online original series, Window Seat reminds me a lot of Daria‘s fictional show within a fictional show, Sick Sad World (the only video example I could find is in French, but I think you’ll get the idea). The animation in Window Seat is reminiscent of a Sick Sad World‘s think black lines and solid colors. So is the voice acting, from the protagonist’s deadpan to his assailants borderline psychosis. The weirdos that Window Seat lampoons aren’t quite as batshit crazy as the ones in Daria’s televison, but the basic premise of making fun of white trash, drunks, and psychos is the same.
We watch the protagonist, a normal flight passenger, squirm next to an assortment of freaks.
Window Seat uses archetypes (Child Star, Pshycic, Cat Lady, etc. thought I’m not sure what genericized model of a person The Transporter is supposed to be) as the basis of its humor, which carry the liability of becoming stereotypes, which have less comedic potential:
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But overall it’s funny and the elementary animation is hard not to enjoy.
Created by Radical Axis – a design firm responsible for other aberrant series – including Freak Show and Squidbillies – Window Seat is up to it’s sixth episode. I’ll be interesting to see how far they can take it before they either a) run out of options, or b) have to delve into the realm of obvious categorization and Chapelle-like racial humor, which, if you’re not Dave Chapelle, is hard to pull off.
Hopefully they’ll find a novel way to cover hipsters and annoying drunk girls at clubs before then.
