Personally, to me, the Chicken Squad feels like a show that was made in 2009 and not 2020. Why?
Well, 2009 was the year that 2D animated cartoons were allowed to look like they were lazily done with cheap flash animation and 3D cartoons were allowed to either be ugly, amateurishly made, or both. Remember, Disney Junior released Special Agent Oso in 2009, and when you watch both Special Agent Oso and The Chicken Squad, you'll not only realize that the same problems with Special Agent Oso are also in The Chicken Squad, but the problems with Special Agent Oso are even worse in The Chicken Squad.
Let me explain. Most of the problems in Special Agent Oso are more from Season 1 than Season 2. In Season 1, every single episode began with Oso doing some random training exercise, and his instructor telling him the best way to do it, and once you watch it, you'll realize just how forgetful Oso is and realize that he's going to mess up. But before this happens, we cut to a random kid having a problem with an activity that they don't know how to do. So basically, with both the training exercise and the kid's struggles, you know the entire plot of any episode of Special Agent Oso Season 1 one minute into the plot, and cartoons should not have to spoil their own plots before you even start to get a grasp on what's going on.
Plus, the humans in Season 1 look like wooden dolls that are animated with poor CGI. They at least looked like actual humans in Season 2, but the writing in Season 2 kind of seemed to get worse. Yeah, that means I don't like the special two-part or four-part episodes of Special Agent Oso because most of the time it feels like the plot is moving at a snail's pace.
There's one more complaint I have about that show: Why is Oso doing training exercises to be a special agent if all his company is about is helping kids do simple tasks? It just feels like a plot element that didn't need to be there.
The creator of Special Agent Oso obviously had two ideas: 1. Make a show about a special agent for a company and make it for a preschool audience, and 2. To make a show teaching kids how to do simple tasks. Both those ideas are great, but not when they're together in the same show. Those ideas are like oil and water; they don't mix.
So, yeah; you get the problems with Special Agent Oso now? Plots that don't mix together, terrible animation, pointless plot points that didn't need to be there in the first place (which is one of my absolute least favorite parts about any story), plots with snail's pace and plot points that are made as an excuse to halt the plot, and giving away the plot before the conflict even begins.
Well, that's most cartoons released in 2009 for you.
Now, remember how bad I said the special episodes of Special Agent Oso are? Well, imagine a show where EVERY SINGLE EPISODE gives you the same experience as one of Special Agent Oso's special episodes. Well, that's The Chicken Squad for you, and let me explain how The Chicken Squad only made those problems worse.
In The Chicken Squad, every single character looks like a toy from a Happy Meal. I hesitate to call our chicken characters chickens because they look like ducks with red hair just copy/pasted onto their heads. Most of the objects in this show look like drag-and-drop toys with their colors changed in Microsoft Paint. And "The Chicken Squad" sounds like a name of a 2000's cartoon than a 2020's cartoon. It feels like this cartoon was really made by some amateur in 2009 and they waited for more than a decade to get it on television, and decided to stamp some really trusty names on the cartoon to make it look like a 2020's cartoon. I know the company that "animated" this cartoon and they are better than this, and I don't think that the animation company behind this even existed in 2009.
The premise? The show's basically your typical "animal rescue crew" show, but for some reason, the ducks (no, I am not going to call them chickens because they look like ducks!) dress like and are treated like members of the military. Is that absolutely necessary for a show basically about ducks rescuing farm animals from danger? Plus, this show is based off a book, but looking at both the books and this cartoon, I don't really think the people behind this show adapted the book really well.
The plots? They're not much better. Every episode's plot feels like someone used a random word generator to help them write the synopsis. And in every single episode, the chickens try to get a job done but they are so stupid that none of their attempts work, and eventually, their mistakes gets them in trouble in a way that's supposed to be comical, but in reality feels like an insult to injury, which I really don't like in kids cartoons, because that basically tells the kids, "If you don't learn this lesson from what our heroes did, then yay, you're an idiot!". And I know that this is basically how shows are made, and preschoolers aren't really the brightest, but I hate when shows challenge preschoolers by insulting the intelligence of preschoolers. Plus, this all just feels like both an insult and an excuse to halt the plot and make it boring. Speaking of that, the plots in these kinds of shows are so thin that the entire plot consists mostly or entirely of the conflict. This is so true in The Chicken Squad that by giving these ducks advice 30 seconds into the episode, Captain Tully basically gives away the whole plot and all excitement for any episode evaporates. Aren't hero shows more exciting than this?
There's one more thing that I hate about the Chicken Squad, and that's Little Boo. He's the kind of arrogant and smug character that you just wanna slap in the face, even if he hasn't said anything.
Overall? A poorly designed cartoon that's feels like it's a scam and is just as exciting as watching paint dry. You and your kids are more likely to either fall asleep or be irritated at the end.
