CNN
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After the social-media blowback that greeted the “Good Occasions” trailer, Netflix opted to premiere the present with out making it obtainable to critics. However the animated collection that dropped April 12 merely underscores the pitfalls of leveraging a well-recognized title with no clear cause for doing so, yielding an edgy comedy that possible would have come and gone with scant discover with out the load of that identify.
Along with the late Norman Lear – who fared significantly higher with a “One Day at a Time” reboot – the roster of producers right here contains Seth MacFarlane (“Ted,” “Household Man”) and NBA famous person Stephen Curry. The collection was created by Ranada Shepard and Carl Jones, with the latter having labored on “The Boondocks.”
“Good Occasions” is hardly the primary present to attempt capitalizing on a recognizable title, however the connection has seldom felt extra tenuous. And the shift to animation, with the wilder prospers that enables, not solely invitations however encourages extra, from speaking roaches to gory violence, making the identify play extra like a cynical seize for consideration.
Aside from occasional strains of the unique music, any similarities just about finish there, with essentially the most outlandish wrinkle involving the central couple’s drug-dealing child Dalvin (Gerald “Slink” Johnson), an try to mock stereotypes that owes a debt to the toddler Stewie in MacFarlane’s “Household Man.”
The sooner collection targeted on a Black household residing within the initiatives, and that’s once more the fundamental template right here. Reggie Evans (voiced by “Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” JB Smoove), a cab driver, is recognized because the grandson of the unique’s John Evans, married to Beverly (Yvette Nicole Brown), and – like his grandfather – elevating a trio of youngsters.
Clearly, there’s a fertile market on the market for grownup animation and the outlandish exaggerations that go along with it. But by the point the present will get to an episode that includes an animated Elon Musk taking an sudden curiosity within the Evans household, or its drained superhero spoof, “Good Occasions” has left the unique far within the rear-view mirror and boarded the prepare to zany city, elevating the plain query, “Why name this ‘Good Occasions?’”
The unique present broke floor in 1974 by depicting a two-parent Black household, reflecting the clout Lear possessed as a producer on the time. He spun the showcase from “Maude,” which itself was a by-product of “All within the Household.”
To say the TV world has modified since then can be the peak of understatement. But the underside line for reboots is whether or not the brand new present brings something contemporary or distinctive to the fabric, whereas offering sufficient of a relationship to the supply, past mere nostalgia, to justify the method.
“Good Occasions” in the end flunks that check on each ranges. With apologies to the unique theme, the consequence doesn’t maintain its head above water, a lot much less make a wave.
“Good Occasions” is streaming now on Netflix.