Well, it looks like our question has been answered.
We watched the debuts of the two new live action series last night, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job and Saul of the Mole Men. T&EASGJ was just kind of weird and silly. If we smoked pot, we surely would have thought it hilarious. (We did like B’owl, the bat owl, though.) We had a few more hopes for Saul which promised to be a green screen send up of Sid & Marty Krofft but found it fairly repellant. We know Adult Swim isn’t exactly supposed to be FUNNY funny, but we dislike the kind of humor that depends entirely on the entire cast having subnormal IQs.

Anyway, the LA TImes article cited above explains our reaction:

Apart from the blood and guts, which reign/rain elsewhere, almost all the signal qualities of a Cartoon Network program were already present in “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” the network’s first (and for several years only) original program, which appropriated, sampled, repurposed and recontextualized a 1970s superhero cartoon into a talk show with the rhythm of a Harold Pinter play.

That rhythm — halting, crippled, marked by the long, long pause — is the true hallmark of the house style. You find it used in “Saul,” with its deliberately bad acting (the voices appear to be dubbed in later, to further that effect) and “Tim and Eric.” It speaks of awkwardness, embarrassment and paralysis, and is consistent with the zeitgeist. Adult Swim launched nine days before the attack on the twin towers and has risen to its position of strength in a time of endless war and a global climate crisis that has already passed the tipping point. It’s a humorous reflection of the impossibility of meaningful action at the end of the world, when there is nothing to say, or worth saying.

MEANWHILE, The Batman and The Legion have been renewed for another season.

“The Batman,” which is nominated for a 2006-2007 Daytime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Special Class Animation Program category, will focus its new season on the introduction of Batman’s Justice League peers. Expect amped-up action and heightened stakes as Superman, Aquaman, The Flash and several others work in concert with Batman – and even more of his amazing technological wonders – to defend Gotham from a seemingly never-ending roster of super villains. The second season of “Legion of Super Heroes” finds the group fulfilling their collective destiny, each member elevating his skills to new levels … just in time to face even greater challenges. A daunting new villain – a destroyer of galaxies from the rich annals of DC Comics – puts the Legion into action alongside new team members. Superman returns from the 21st century with greater development of both his physical prowess and far better utilization of his powers to help the Legion toward victory in the 31st century and beyond. Moreover, the Legion finds a surprising, new ally from across the space-time continuum to assist in its efforts to rid the universe of this powerful foe.


MEANWHILE MEANWHILE, Toon Zone reports that a new anime based on TO TERRA, recently published by Vertical, is on its way:

Keiko Takemiya’s classic 1970s science fiction manga “Toward the Terra”, previously adapted in movie form in 1980, is returning in television anime form this April on Mainichi Broadcasting and Tokyo Broadcasting stations.

The series is set in the far future, after mankind has fled the polluted Earth to live in computer-regulated space colonies. On the fringes of society dwell the MU, feared and hunted psychics who dream of one day returning to Earth. MU leader Soldier Blue and his successor Jomy begin an epic struggle to find a homeland for their people.