Saddle Rash

Oh man this was a funny pilot. A story of a no-armed gunfighter told by a senile old man who sucks at telling stories. Voice talents such as Mitch Hedberg, Sarah Silverman, Todd Barry, H. Jon Benjamin (McGurk from Home Movies) joined the fun and made this an all around hilarious pilot episode. Unfortunately it seems as though after such a great first episode, there would be really nowhere to go with the series. Everything was covered in the pilot: gunfighter comes to town to seek revenge, becomes town hero, wins against rival, sets of into the sunset. What else could they do? Well I have faith that they would've figured something out. I just wish we got the chance to see.

Adult Swim showed this again a few days ago (apparently it was first shown in August of 2004), and I got a chance to catch it. I was very pleased with "Saddle Rash", but I think it probably never would have caught on even if Adult Swim and the Cartoon Network had given it a chance. And it would have needed a fairly extensive retooling (similar to the one they gave "Venture Brothers") to turn the pilot into a continued series, because the pilot episode is pretty self contained and wraps up all its story threads,pretty much leaving the series with nowhere to go.

Still, "Saddle Rash" is a good natured, light hearted romp. The writers poke gentle fun at the conventions and clichés of the old Gene Autry serials, Randolph Scott movies and "High Noon" style showdowns from the golden area of the Western, without getting too heavy handed or sarcastic the way the Simpsons would - it's a mild lampoon, not a parody. (OK, the concept of a gunslinger with no arms is a LITTLE heavy handed). The animation is simple but effective, and there is some crackerjack voice acting to further flesh out the quips and one liners...H. Jon Benjamin (late of "Home Movies" fame) and Sarah Silverman, among others, all deliver a nicely considered blend of improvisation and timing to jazz up the punch lines. And there are some great off handed remarks to keep things moving - my favorite is the one regarding the "mysterious" curly haired cloven hoofed "woman" who seems to be stalking character "Buffalo Bert" - "Nellie had a bone to pick, and Buffalo Bert, well, he had bones..."

It's been a more than a year since the pilot was shown, so I don't suppose that "Saddle Rash" will ever be revived from obscurity. But I think I would have liked it if some one had tried - especially if the writers had managed to pump up the energy levels of the scripts just a little. The results surely would have been at LEAST as worth watching as the half-baked exercises in nihilistic cheapness Adult Swim insists on showing these days ("12 Oz Mouse" and "Squidbillies", I'm looking at YOU.)

Not worth staying up for, but worth catching if you happen to see it listed on the program guide while you are channel surfing.

Listen, I do NOT hate people who have no arms. That said, while armless people can be amazing, it's honestly sad to see people without arms. So, this does have an interesting concept. And for what it's worth, it proudly deserved credit for featuring Cartoon Network's first explicitly armless protagonist.

That said, I don't think it was that good. No, I don't think it's bad either. Hannah is pretty, but she didn't need to hit Slim so hard so many times. The writing and jokes were just meh, the animation meh, the acting is pretty good, though. But the characters were meh. Just about everything about this show was meh.

This show is lucky it's not as bad as the Groovenians. While sad it never got picked up, it was a rather boring pilot overall. Hey, it could've been a lot worse. Imagine if this was made by Justin Roiland, then it would've turned out horrible. It's not bad for a Western-themed cartoon, though. Fine parody, but meh cartoon.