Tripping the Rift

This is an animated sci-fi comedy featuring Chode McBlob, a purple outlaw space captain, and his crew as they adventure throughout space. His crew consists of Six, the ship's science officer and Chode's sex robot, T'Nuk, the ship's pilot and cook, Gus, the ship's butler and engineer, Whip, the ship's foreman, and Bob, the ship's AI. Chode and his crew are a for-hire crew whose jobs could range from smuggling to mercenary work to being a legitimate courier, but they frequently take time away from paying work to chase after get- rich-quick schemes.

The show's comedy revolves mainly around sex. In addition to sex jokes, there are many references to other science-fiction series throughout the show including but not limited to Star Wars, Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Battlestar Galactica. It also has references to many other novels, movies, and television series in other genres. Other humor involves body humor, puns, wordplay, relationship humor, dysfunctional family humor, and insult humor.

Overall, it's a fun 20-minute cartoon that works perfectly for watching right before bed or to have on in the background when doing something else.

This is a weird show that still has yet to show any real depth. But then again I do not think it is supposed to. It is about a group of Aliens in space who endure the tragedies and ups and downs of space life. Gina Gershon is funny as Six, an alien created android. Really weird show has a few good laughs an episode but so far is not enough to hold one's attention enough to keep the interest. Yet the ratings are still high, and it does a good job being a follow up to the fantastic and hilarious Shannen Doherty show "Scare Tactics" This show is not really supposed to be taken seriously but oh well. I guess you get what you pay for.

Humor is a difficult thing to master. You can have a joke and tell it in such a way that it either makes the listener pee their pants with laughter, wince in discomfort, or sigh in apathy. All the same joke, just different ways of telling it.

Something very simple can ruin a joke: poor timing; not knowing that the word "porn" is not a punch line to everything and shouldn't be treated as such; that falling off a small ledge isn't funny without proper setup; that simple announcing you're gay isn't funny without some kind of context; and so forth.

Some people don't understand that there is an entire art to comedy. Louis CK can tell a story about getting a hand job and it's hilarious. Dane Cook did the same thing and it's lame. Andy Kaufman ate a bowl of ice cream and it was brilliant. Tom Green ate a bowl of cereal and no one cared.

Tripping the Rift wants to do shock comedy, but it doesn't understand the first thing about comedy. It's the Dane Cook and Tom Green of cg animated shows.

Not too bad altogether. The cgi is good. Middle of the road edginess. The Choode character is basically Duckman with a bit more of a spine. Even the voice sounds the same. They have just started showing the first season here in Canada and they've already trotted out the dark clowns in just about every episode. Gershon's voice over is improving as time goes by. I hate Stuttering John and if the ship undergoes a voice modulation, that would be fine with me.

There's a decided lack of imagination being exhibited here but it doesn't stop it from being entertaining in a sophomoric way. Doesn't move very far outside its orbit on any occasion. They could really do something with this if they stepped outside the box a little, but it stands on its own for entertainment value as it is.

I have watched quite a lot of Science Fiction movies during the past 60 years, enjoyed the funny black and white Flash Gordon and similar films of old, and I am a great fan of the first Galactica stuff.

I love my (translated into German) Star Wars movies that I recorded many beers and years ago.

Especially precious is it whenever somebody dares to make fun of the mostly way too serious Science Fiction movies and series. My congratulations go out to the masters of black (or should I say: colorful?) humor in this series.

Some episodes just found me grinning, but I have also laughed so hard sometimes - tears were running down my cheeks.

Compared to the gazillions of other series that TV stations torture us with on a daily basis this here is heartwarming because it doesn't spare a stereotype that all y'all know from the Big Buck Hollywood creations and makes a nice slapstick of it.

We are not on this planet or in this universe to just sit in the corner and whine. There's a lot of catastrophes happening around us, I know, and thus it might be better to enjoy life as far as possible, and to smile a bit while we are watching TV.

Oh, I almost forgot this: the people who give their voices to the hilarious persons/creatures sure are having fun. You can hear it. May the force be with all of the folks involved for many more episodes.