DVD Review: Drawn Together - Uncensored!: Season Three
The final season of Drawn Together has finally made it to DVD in the box set release titled Drawn Together - Uncensored!: Season Three. As the name implies, the show is completely uncensored, so all the swearing remains in place, as does the occasional nudity... but sorry guys, the ladies never really get nude, the full-frontal shots are always of dudes. So yeah, if you're looking at the DVD cover art, it is indeed misleading. You never get to see Princess Clara or Foxxy Love in the buff (though there is some brief boobage in the final episode).
I had stopped watching this show after the first season when it originally premiered on Comedy Central back in 2004. It wasn't a bad show, I just didn't find it funny enough to continue spending time with it. Originally, the format was basically about a house full of cartoon characters across various genres who all lived together in a house as they participated in a reality show similar to Big Brother. Each character had their own distinct personalities, and they would be given challenges, and would have confessionals where they talked directly to the TV audience just like they to in the real-life reality shows.
By the third season, however, this format seemed to have changed, as the characters got out of the house and had adventures (really bizarre adventures) that had nothing to do with reality television, such as one episode where a Terminator comes from the future to kill Wooldoor in order to stop Wooldoor's new children's show from turning the entire population of the world into homosexuals. There are still the occasional confessionals, but other than that, the reality-show theme is pretty much absent from the third season. And you know what? I think that's a good thing.
If the first season had been like this third season, I would have continued to watch. The bizarre stories mixed with extreme moments of disgust (way worse than anything ever shown on say the Ren & Stimpy Show) and the casual way everyone uses swear words, plus the abnormal fetishes many of the characters (such as Captain Hero's fetish for dead bodies or Princess Clara's fetish for car crashes) have makes from some enjoyable entertainment. Of course, this is the uncensored version of the show, so I have no idea if it would still be as funny seeing the censored version on television.
One thing you have to keep in mind when watching this series, however, is that there is pretty much no continuity at all. I think the show's creators just say if it's funny, then do it, as they have no problem killing off someone and then bringing them back only seconds later with no explanation, or creating a background for a character that would directly contradict another background they had previously created. So this is one series where you really just have to go with the flow.
I think my personal favorite episode from this season is Breakfast Food Killer, where Wooldoor becomes the new mascot for a cereal after the previous mascot is pommelled to death. In a parody of Boogey Nights, we get a party scene showing a bunch of cartoon character at an orgy-style party, all addicted to crunch berries. Franken Berry is the ringleader of the entire operation, and is occasionally set as a parody of the Emperor from Star Wars, turning Wooldoor to the dark side (and only Toot's quest for vengeance will save Wooldoor).
Saying this is a very adult-oriented cartoon would be an understatement. The jokes are pretty much all adult-oriented, perverse, and often extremely disgusting. If that's your cup of tea, then there's a good bet you'll like this one. As for bonus materials, the only ones that are worth anything are the commentaries. Similar to the commentaries on The Simpsons, it's a bunch of people from the show sitting around and talking about what went on during production, and just anything else that happens to fly into their minds. They're fun to listen to, but unlike The Simpsons, they are only available for select episodes.
This box set contains all 14 episodes from season 3:
- Freaks & Greeks
- Wooldoor Sockbat's Giggle-Wiggle Funny Tickle Non-Traditional Progressive Multicultural Roundtable!
- Spelling Applebee's
- Unrestrainable Trainable
- N.R.A.y RAY
- Mexican't Buy Me Love
- Lost in Parking Space, Part One
- Lost in Parking Space, Part Two
- Charlotte's Web of Lies
- Breakfast Food Killer
- Drawn Together Babies
- Nipple Ring-Ring Goes to Foster Care
- Toot Goes Bollywood
- American Idol Parody Clip Show