Detonadores

I can forgive the stereotypical characters which can be seen all over television (some of them are actually named after their stereotype, case and point, guess what one-dimensional personality trait "Emo-Cries" has. Could it be that he's emo and he cries?) The plots are all rip-offs of something else, which I can also forgive, but the visuals I cannot. You might have to see it for yourself to understand. I'm not kidding. It's not just the fact that it's flash animation ,which can be executed brilliantly if you know what your doing. It's the choppy movements, the lack of movement in the right scenes and places, and the terrible character designs.The eyes and mouths on all the characters are terrifying enormous. It's actually physically painful to look at sometimes.

As for the jokes themselves, I am happy to say they do warrant an occasional chuckle, even if most of them are re-hashed from something else. The talking bulldog getting ready to sell his soul for a potato salad recipe actually made me smile a little bit. Sadly, it wasn't enough to rescue this eyesore of a cartoon.

Rob Dyrdek is a huge star. If you watch MTV, he is probably a household name for you. Having several shows including Ridiculousness, Fantasy Factory and Rob & Big, not to mention founding the very popular Street League and co-starring in the skating movie Street Dreams, Rob is nothing less of a superstar. So when we heard Rob gave his personal approval to create an animated show about him and his group of friends skating, it could of had a lot of potential. I will review the show from two perspectives: as a viewer, and as a skateboarder.

Average viewer: Wild Grinders offers absolutely nothing groundbreaking to the world of animation. The characters were designed very simplistically. Before I watched the show (I watched several episodes) I saw pictures of it. I mistakenly thought the show was for three year olds, they are designed that basically. Rob is the only member of the cast who actually skateboards. I actually was pleased to see Kel Mitchell was in this. I loved him in Kenan and Kel/Good Burger and want to see him still have a job in Hollywood.

The humor was, quite simply, horrifying. Whoever is writing their jokes must get paid minimum wage and it really shows. Each episode has many many jokes, all which leave me shaking my head. It gets a "heh" out of me an average of one to two times per episode. The humor includes belches, characters who were told "they were dropped when they were younger," a camera that has "a bazillion gigawats of power" and so forth. After watching each episode for five minutes, I turn off my television it's that unbearable.

A skateboarder: Rob Dyrdek is a very talented skateboarder. He owns the successful skate brand Alien Workshop and gets a lot of respect. I tune in to his other show Ridiculousness time to time hoping for a laugh either from him, this blonde chick and this black who seem to serve no purpose being there other than looking cool. I think the black man rewinds the clips sometimes, but that's it other than stating the obvious.

Wild Grinders is not a good representation of actual skateboarding. Yes the skaters perform actual tricks like boardslides, nosegrinds, 5-0's and others. But a lot of the time Rob and friends do the physically impossible, even occasionally freezing in mid-air to do ten kickflips in a row. As I stated earlier, Rob is the only actor who is an actual skateboarder, which is a shame really. It only makes his animated show less credible, being the only skater on the crew. The other characters come off as being complete posers (not to mention stereotypical,) such as "Emo Crys" with long black hair, tight jeans and black eye liner. Goggles, the videographer, is a complete geek with large glasses. Which might sound funny, but really isn't once you get to know him. But Rob's dog even skateboards (adding more realism) and sometimes talks.

Verdict: If you want a good show for your kids, stay away from Wild Grinders. If you have kids under the age for five, they might like it. But any older and it's just not funny. If your' a fan of Rob, you might get a kick out of it, that is if you can tolerate pitiful humor. If your a skater, you'll be surprised how low Rob stooped, he clearly wanted a paycheck and that's all. This show really does make me appreciate Rocket Power more, which is what I would recommend over this. Break out the old VHS tapes you recorded, because in this case, older is better.

Sat through ten episodes of this a while ago. It doesn't have any sort of the dark humor that makes The Nutshack awesome. It doesn't rely on as many stereotypes, little to no funny jokes. What the hell happened? Lil' Rob is nothing more than just a love child of Mario the plumber and Phil Matibag, lacking everything that makes those two enjoyable.

God was this a really horrible experience... the animation is pure garbage, the characters are techinically walking planks that have little to no personality whatsoever! And the art style was so bad that it made me want to puke. Avoid this so called Cartoon and watch something better like Hey Arnold or Rocket Power.

First episodes are always the hardest to produce because they benefit the least from development and experience and suffer from rush to launch and the learning curve. This is not the case here. It is nice to see a cartoon intended just to be a cartoon and not an overdeveloped marketing dialogue driven commercial. Great contemporary designs executed in flash with a bright fun palette of color, sound effects and production design. The voices are well done and star and creator Rob Dyrdek does a great job with his "Lil Rob" character and Dad/Gene is well performed - Kel Mitchell is always great and has such tones to his voice that it makes you smile. The accuracy to some of the skateboarding as quite unique in the world of TV animation in that it is detailed and precise . The overall entertainment value is great and my kids love the show. - love the homage o Looney Tunes!