Catching Up

I feel people are just being nice because it's a YouTube cartoon. I had low expectations, but this genuinely has to be one of the most generic, nothing cartoons I've ever seen. The designs are awful. I genuinely thought the two main characters were a wolf and a monkey before learning they're supposed to be a cat and a mouse. The artstyle is inconsistent. Some characters look like they're from a different show.

The voice actors are horribly miscast. They're supposed to be teenagers and the cat character sounds like an alcoholic 20 year-old. Not much to be said about him. He's just kinda boring. Mordecai but without any charisma. The mouse character sounds like a 9 year-old. A literal child. Why are these two hanging out? The worst part is that it's never addressed that the mouse character is a literal child. It's treated as normal when he's messing about in a nightclub.

It tries to copy Butch Hartman's style of writing so bad. It literally goes as low as to make a "I say I don't do something and then immediately after, I do it" joke. I especially cringed when the mouse character said "b*tches". It sounds so forced. Like it's petulantly trying to declare it's not a kids show.

It's not funny in the slightest. I can't find a single instance where a joke worked. The closest moment it comes to being funny is the scene where the annoying mouse gets a drink thrown in his face.

Finally, I'm just kinda sick of slice of life cartoons. They're getting stale at this point. It's become the go-to for "We want to make a cartoon but don't have a particular idea of how to go about it". At this point, I'll legimately take mafia kpop fanfiction over this. At least that's funny bad. Make a story about an unhinged all-female black metal band who are also ghost hunters or something. I don't know.

Just watched the pilot of Catching Up and I've got to say, it's a good pilot. Usually it takes a while for me to get to know the characters and their personalities but here it's done really well.

It's a simple premise: you have two characters, an extrovert and an introvert and they are both practically forced together and put into a scenario, in the pilot they are in a club. It's quite fun to watch because Clay, the introvert, just wants nothing to do with Rob, the extrovert. It's sort of like an "enemies become friends" plot.

The animation is brilliant here, it's very expressive and a joy to watch, like a show from the 2000s in a way.

And the acting is good too, you can tell the VAs put their all into it.

Overall, LS Mark has outdone himself with Catching Up, and that's saying something considering he literally ranked every Simpsons and Family Guy episode. I would highly recommend Catching Up.

I'd rate this a 6.4/10 if I could. Ok, so LS Mark, the creator of the series, said the target demographic for this was 12-18, and that the characters were around 12-18. So i'm the target demographic for this show, what do I think about it? Well.. It's ironic that this pilot is just decent considering LS Mark is a cartoon reviewer. So, the characters. The characters are fine, I guess. Clay is socially awkward and introverted, so that makes him everyones spirit animal on the internet apparently. But honestly, he's just mid to me. I do hate him, but I don't see why people keep considering him a good character. Rob, he's also socially awkward, but he's extroverted. And he's worse than Clay. He's kind of annoying and a little bland to me personally. So, now on to the first episode. It's really just a dose of decent. Around 54% of the jokes are funny, with everything else just falling flat to me. The idea of, idk 13 year olds, going to a club is not all THAT interesting imo. The art style is good, not my type, but still good. And the animation looks good, although it looks like most Toon Boom/Adobe Flash shows do: Animated on 2s, thick lines, and characters having the came walk cycles. It's alright though, because I use Adobe Flash too. Anyway, Catching Up is alright. It's not mediocre, but it's not good. However, it was probably written when LS Mark was around 18, so i'll cut him some slack. But otherwise, 6/10. If episode 2 comes out and is better than the first, just skip this pilot episode.

I feel the indie animation scene on YouTube is becoming over saturated, but at least there's still good stuff coming out. I'm not a huge fan of SL Mark but I respect him, and this was great. I love how much it felt like an old Saturday morning cartoon like SpongeBob or Fairly Odd parents. (But edgier). The animation for a indie project is good but a bit rough around the edges. The voice acting is top notch, and it's actually legit funny, had me laughing several times. My biggest issue is the stock sound effects are very distracting and took me out of my immersion, also the swearing was unnecessary at times (nowhere near as bad as Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss). So great start to a show, hope to see more. Like it way more than Amazing Digital Circus and current Helluva Boss. (Haven't seen Murder Drones)

Dont know all to much about reviewing cartoons or stuff but this was genuinely really funny with some good visuals this was a fantastic start to a show.the backgrounds look stunning especially the night time shots they look great and feels distinct from other cartoons. I love clay and robs Dynamics alot kinda reminds my of mordecai and rigby when they are at odds with eachother. The show's humour is right up my alley especially the humour that catches you of guard and i like how it doesnt focus on being child friendly and contains slurs and alcohol doesnt feel like they are holding themselves down and going for a genuine show. If i must discribe the show in one worf it would be unique 9/10.