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It's very clear as day why Disney greenlit Sofia The First as soon as they heard the pitch. A show about a young girl learning to be a princess AND she gets to be friends with other Disney Princesses?! It would've been foolish not to pick it up in favor of something weaker. This show would not only be great for the young girls watching but also for parents who would want to dress their daughters up as Sofia, like Cinderella, Ariel and Jasmine before her. Watching the show and pilot movie in full though, all that hype surrounding it was all for not! Instead of being anywhere near the leagues of Disney Princesses of old, Sofia The First is more in the ballpark of Karma's World, Vampirina, and Fancy Nancy in terms of quality. From the awful writing to the cringy lyrics, this show doesn't even last 2 seconds before tripping over itself.

Created by Craig Gerber, Sofia The First's first issue is in the backstory. Basically, her Mom, a shoe cobbler, falls in love with the king, they get married and coronated into royalty. That sentence sounds like a really interesting story that could've tackled the struggles of widowed parents, the effects it has on the children, and how it's not too late to fall in love again. Wanna know how much time Sofia The First gives this very interesting and potentially emotional plot? 3 FREAKING MINUTES! That backstory is zoomed passed at Mach 6 speed before the title drops in the pilot movie with the rest being a generic and repetitive story of Sofia adjusting to palace life! If you think it gets better in the main series, think again! Each episode has the same problem of forced and unnatural conflict that is dragged out to try and reach 22 minutes. Episodes like The Big Sleepover, A Royal Mess, and Cedric's Apprentice should've been 11 minutes top with how simple their plots out and how easy they can be solved. The show also has some mediocre world building as Encantcia is a very generic kingdom with nothing that makes it stand out from other much more interesting kingdoms. Where's the rich history? Why are the citizens just mindless sheep? Why would I want to come here instead of Agrabah, Atlantis, or Atlantica? What really makes this show frustrating to sit through is the handling of its messages. I'm all for teaching young children to not judge others before you get to know them, that it's never okay to lie, and that if you want others to be your friends to just be yourself. The problem with Sofia The First is that it drags these messages into the ground with its awful pacing and incompetent characters. This show's never once heard of the concept less is more, which is a problem because kids hate being bored when watching a show that takes forever to get to the point.

The characters don't offer much outside of their one archetype, and that's a major problem if you want young children to say they're their favorite characters. Starting with our eponymous princess, Sofia is a normal girl who becomes a princess overnight...and that's it. Yeah, she can talk to animals with her amulet, and she wants to do the right thing; the problem is she's really irresponsible, selfish, and ignorant about it. Every episode has her learn a lesson she should've figured out sooner and ends with her getting what she wants, even though it never feels earned. No one else is much better as they're all defined by their one characteristic. James is the typical mischievous boy, Clover is a glutinous rabbit, Baileywick is the obedient steward, King Rowland is the typical stoic king, Miranda is the sweet mother that's more of a tool for Sofia, and Vivian's character begins and ends with her being shy. There's also Cedric, the royal sorcerer who wants to take Sofia's amulet to take over the kingdom to make up for the fact that he's nothing but a poor man's Jafar. Then there's Amber, Sofia and James' spoiled brat of a sister. Amber is very much another prime example of a spoiled little twerp who no one should take seriously. She's rude, she's selfish, she arrogant, she's envious of Sofia, and she's narcissistic. The worst part about her? Her brother and father act NOTHING like her! They're not well written characters, but the fact that they're nice and she's as nasty as a mule mud pie leads me to believe she's adopted or from a previous marriage! She's easily the worst character in the show as well as one of the worst characters in Disney history!

The one genuine compliment I'll give this show is that the voice acting is really good. Sam Riegel once again shines as an excellent voice director and is able to bring out the best performances from the actors, despite lackluster material. Ariel Winter sounded very sweet and chipper as Sofia, not to mention she's got really good singing chops. Was very surprised to hear Steven Universe himself, Zach Callison, as James. He made him sound very playful and lively, much like his more famous role. Darcy Rose Byrnes did a superb job making Amber sound snobbish and has a really good singing voice. Sabrina Carpenter sounded sweet and innocent as Vivian, while also having a very energetic singing voice. Tim Gunn does a very good job making Baileywick sound well spoken and loyal. Sara Ramirez sounded very sweet and motherly as Miranda. Major props to the veteran voice actions for bringing their A game to their respective characters. Travis Willingham as the stoic King Rowland, Jess Harnell as the conniving Cedric and Wayne Bradey as the comic relief Clover. Even though their characters aren't anything to write home about, the actors did a very good job bringing them to life.

Visually, it's got absolutely stunning designs and backgrounds...on top of some clunky character animation. As expected from Disney, the characters have a very appealing and expressive designs with big eyes, round heads, and unique hairstyles. They also go all out in the attires with vibrant dresses, classy suits, and even some sharp casual clothes. The characters also have an illustrated coating to their character models to give them that classic old school Disney animation look. The backgrounds are also very well drawn and expansive with beautiful use of watercolors, shading and contrast. The big issue with the visuals though is the actual character animation. Despite having dazzling aesthetics, the characters look like plastic dolls come to life when in motion. They don't have a clear sense of mass, their hair and clothes barely bob when they movie, and their facial expressions are restricted to their character models. This is especially the case during the song and dance numbers where, try as they might, it just comes off like the characters are dancing in a pool of pudding.

I wish I could say at least the songs are catchy, but oh brother of Moses are these songs Cringe with a capital C! Production-wise, they make good use of their instruments and melody to have an upbeat jazz inspired vibe to them. The actors also have great singing chops and do excellent work hitting those long notes. Where they all fall apart, though, is in the lyrics. The lyrics have such amateurish structures, bad wording and forced rhyming. Perfect Slumber Party, Cedric The Great, and Blue Ribbon Bunny are the most egregious cases. Listen to verses like "At a perfect slumber party, we don't snort and we don't squeal," or "and everyone who teased me will be at my command!" or even "He's a blue ribbon bunny and I'm all the rage" and tell me they making you want to start dancing instead of gagging!

This princess isn't even worth saving from a fire breathing turtle monster. Sofia The First is another awful misfire from the Mouse House's television division. The writing is terrible, the characters are one note, the animation is clunky, the messages are redundant, and the songs have absolutely cringe lyrics. I will give credit to the spot on voice acting and dazzling aesthetics, but those surface level compliments don't make this show worth watching. If you want a cartoon about being a princess for young girls, watch Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True. It does a much better job showcasing what it means to be a princess and is far more memorable than this royal mess -.-

After 16 years on the air, The Fairly Oddparents concluded it's original run in 2017. While the show started off well enough with funny humor, creative visuals, and fun characters, the show belly flopped into seasonal rot and fans such as myself were counting the days when Nickelodeon would finally put it out of its misery. For a while, that was the end of the series...until Paramount+ made a live action show that only lasted 1 season and was forgotten about as quickly as it came. After that misfire, we got this new animated reboot with a new main character and new animation style. While I didn't expect much from this show, I was hoping at least it would be an improvement over the original show's final seasons. Oh brother Jacques WAS I WRONG! Rather than fix the problems that plagued the OG series's final seasons, they only doubled down on them to make a show of equal if not worse quality! From the idiot characters to the mediocre voice acting, this show once again reinforces the belief that Fairly Oddparents as an IP should've ended with Channel Chasers.

Developed by Daniel Abramovici, Ashleigh Crystal Hairston, Lindsay Katai, and Dave Stone, the show also features original series creator Butch Hartman as an executive producer. As the tell, don't show intro explains, this show focuses on Hazel moving to a new city and going on adventures with her Fairy Godparents, Cosmo and Wanda. The idea of Cosmo and Wanda being assigned a new godkid after Timmy Tuner grows up makes sense given the concept. Unfortunately, this show, like the original during its final days, seems deathly allergic to good world building and basic story structure! Here, Cosmo and Wanda are given a needlessly complicated backstory of being retired for thousands of years living amongst the humans until they met Hazel through happenstance. Why the writers when through all that trouble when they could've just had Cosmo and Wanda assigned to Hazel in the first place, I'll never know. The writing only gets worse from there as the show speeds by character introductions, pours out exposition dumps by the truck load, and has so many convenient coincidences that it's not even funny. Speaking of which, good turkey flavored gravy are the jokes Cringe with a capital C! This show is a landfill of unfunny puns, gross out jokes, and dull visual gags! This is the exact kind of writing that the original series was rightfully ripped to shreds over.

By the last season of the original show, the characters were all flanderized to be unlikable nitwits that don't freaking shut up. In this new show, the characters are STILL unlikable nitwits that don't freaking shut up! Starting with our new leading godkid, Hazel is the umpteenth stupid, irresponsible girl who makes things worse I've had the displeasure of knowing! She's also an irritating chatterbox that refuses to allow the scenes to speak for themselves. Her parents, Angela and Marcus, are both incompetent and shallow parents that treat their child like an accessory more than an actual person. Sure, they're not neglectful like Timmy's parents, but that's not really high praise. It's like saying a dog turd smells better than an elephant turd! Cosmo and Wanda maintain their flanderized selves from the original show's final seasons with Cosmo being dumber than a back of peanuts and Wanda being a nagging nuisance. Together they're 2 halves of a whole idiot, and not in a funny way. None of the other characters are better with most of them being walking, talking, unfunny jokes. Jasmine can't sing worth a rat's behind, Winn is the cool kid, Whisper Fred is an ASMR fanatic, Mr. Guzman is a childish teacher, and Amy Krentz is a poor man's Trunchbull. Then there's Dev Dimmadome, the grandson of original series fan favorite, Doug Dimmadome. Dev is the designated spoiled brat of the show, but instead of being funny or having any layers to him, he's just the atypical rich kid with a rank attitude who treats everyone like dirt. Yeah, yeah, I know he acts like that because of his Dad, tech mogul Dale Dimmadome, acts like that. But like Amity before him, that's no excuse because he's still a hatable brat that no one should take seriously.

The voice acting is pretty mediocre; not down right terrible, as the actors are trying, but still not very good. Ashleigh Crystal Hairston does a solid job making Hazel sound eccentric and spunky, though her singing could use some work. Susan Blakeslee maintains that peppy and sweet charm as Wanda. Darren Noris, meanwhile, keeps Cosmo's voice at a high pitch which is as annoying now as it was back in the OG's final seasons. Really wish he dialed it back. Nonbinary actor, iris menas, did a solid job making Winn sound like a kid, though I wish they gave them more personality in their performance. Merk Nguyen sounded fine as Jasmin, but did much better work playing her inner fears. Marcus Montgomery's whispering for Whisper Fred kinda makes him sound creepy, to be honest. Kyle McCarley made Dev sound snooty and nasty but not really funny or memorable. Jentel Hawkins and Asante Jones sounded fine as Hazel's parents but nothing to right home about. The veteran actors, Grey DeLisle, Carlos Alazraqui, and Eric Bauza, do pretty good work in their respective roles. The major hurdle these actors are all faced is the cringy dialogue. I defy anyone to make lines like "Hi, I'm cool, I mean Jasmine! So cool you can make it to the cool, I mean sleepover!" or "If you don't pass, I don't get my new paper weight." actually funny.

Visually, the animation is really choppy, like the OG show's final seasons. Nickelodeon collabed with Billionfold Inc and Fred Films with the animation provided by Irish animation studio Giant Animation. The result is a very badly crafted visual style that's 3D pretending to be 2D. The designs maintain the simplistic yet expressive look of the original show with the characters having circular heads, big expressive eyes, a appropriate attire. The backgrounds are also well designed with an abstract yet recognizable feel to the buildings and interiors. The actual character animation, though, looks so choppy and unpolished. The characters are weightless in their movements, the walk cycles are very stiff, and the characters are restricted to their character models, thus any attempts to make funny cartoon expressions come off as cringe. I'm all for trying new things, but the animation is so mishmashed in execution, I can't help but feel it would be so much better if it was just 2D.

Just when the franchise couldn't be brought down any lower, this show brings it down to the same level as the bottom of the Mariana Trench! Fairly Oddparents: A New Wish is yet another failed attempt to make the franchise relevant. The writing is terrible, the characters are idiots, the jokes are cringe, the voice acting is mediocre and the animation is a choppy mess. As if that wasn't bad enough, this show has the gaul to include not 1, but 2 infamous names in the credits that make this all kinds of uncomfortable to sit through: Butch Hartman and Kyle Carrozza. This makes the show as unbearable to sit through as Ren and Stimpy before it! It more than deserves the worst fate to bestow on a piece of entertainment: to be ignored and forgotten! Do NOT watch Fairly Oddparents: A New Wish! Even if you're willing to separate art from the artist, there's nothing of value here that you could find in the first seasons of the original show -.-

Hair Love was such a gorgeously animated and heartwarming short that more than earned it's Oscar win at the 2019 Academy Awards. With the animated series, Young Love, acting as the successor, I naturally assumed the momentum of the story would be carried over. Boy howdy and a fair how do you do, was I WRONG! What we have instead is another awful animated sitcom that's prioritizes cringy humor over basic story telling. From the terrible writing to the hatable characters, this show is the equivalent to watching someone try to get gum out of their hair with a chainsaw.

Created by Hair Love co-director Matthew A. Cherry with Carl Jones as his showrunning co-pilot, the show follows the lives of Stephen Love and his family in the suburbs in Chicago. Based on how well executed the Oscar winning short was, you'd think the creators would learn the right lessons and have each episode be a heartwarming tale of sacrifice, responsibility, kindness, and perseverance in the face of uncertainty. If you had those hopes like yours truly, they will be utterly decimated within the first few minutes! The show completely drops the ball from the word go by having some abysmal writing! Conflicts are forced upon the characters at every turn, they mostly stationary in one location at a time, and the resolutions feel unearned and rushed. This show has some awful pacing as every single conflict could be resolved if the child sat down and had honest conversations with one another. It shouldn't take 22 minutes for Stephen to learn how to value himself. Nor should it take that long for Angela to not take advantage of a homeless family for views. The show also has daydream squences that drag the episodes to a crawl. Not helping is the show has very bad humor, ranging from forced pop culture references, cringy slang, and eye roll worthy puns. Whatever remnants of the short's clever writing and inspiring dialogue is barely, if at all, present in this show.

The characters are varying degrees of hatable with the old ones being shells of their former selves at best and the new ones being unbearable. Starting with the lovable child from the short, Zuri is no longer the sweet, innocent, and determined young girl from when we were first introduced to her. Now she's a selfish, irresponsible, annoying, and stupid kid that learns all the wrong lessons from her parents. Her Mom, Angela, went from being this loving, kind, smart, and helpful fashion blogger from the short to this selfish, greedy, arrogant tramp who's too focused on the future to be in the present. Yeah, I know she survived cancer; but anxiety and PTSD is not an excuse for not being in the here and now. Her parents, Russell and Gigi, are some of the most obnoxious animated grandparents with Russell being a greedy cheapskate and Gigi being an overbearing nag. Zuri's friends just take up space, her cousin, Amir, has next-to-no personality, and Lil Ankh is a pampered, spoiled rapper that gives actual rappers a bad look with his selfishness and lack of empathy. Star is also there to just be another annoying nag and could've easily been written out and nothing would change.

Then there's Stephen Love, the protagonist of the short and show. Before I state what's wrong with him, I'd like to share a quote from Matthew A. Cherry about Stephan. "Black fathers have one of the worst raps in mainstream media as being portrayed as being deadbeats and not being involved. It was important to us to showcase a black father that was young, that had tattoos. I think if you saw someone like him on the street, you would assume that wasn't a loving father that does his daughter's hair. We're just trying to change the conversation, one project at a time." That was the goal with Hair Love. That was the intention with Stephen's characters in the short. With the show, they shot themselves in the foot with a FREAKING RPG! Stephen went from being a good father to just another incompetent, deadbeat loser the creators wanted to avoid! He spends more time trying to impress that pampered brat, Lil Ankh, making music at his desk, and taking his personality deprived nephew to a museum than he does with his only daughter! And when he doesn't interact with her directly, the interaction is over before it even begins! His characterization in the short was a breath of fresh air with all the constant terrible depictions of fathers in animation. His character here makes him no different than Peter Griffin, Mr. Turner, and Homer Simpson!

The voice acting is honestly pretty mediocre. I get the actors are trying, but not even the most seasoned of them can make the cringy dialogue work. Kid Cudi (credited by his real name, Scott Mescudi) sounded fine as Stephen, but I feel he could've been more enthusiastic about his relationship with his daughter and music. Issa Rae does pretty well as Angela, but I feel her performance was better in the short because in the show she has to read lines like "You know what, I can do more damage on line! Hand me my phone!" and put on a French accent when she pretends she's in Paris in her apartment and it just doesn't work. Loretta Devine didn't really sound as sassy or as lively as Gigi and it felt more like she was putting on an impression of a Grandma than an actual Grandma. Harry Lennix was alright as Russell, but I felt like the material he was given to work with didn't do his talents justice. Idriys Jones gave Lil Ankh a very irritating and squeaky voice and it just got on my nerves. Tamar Braxton was really just using her normal voice to play Star, which isn't very impressive. The best actor by default is Brooke Monroe Conaway as Zuri, making her sound spunky, energetic and clever. If she had a better script, I'd bump the rating of this review just for her performance. As is, though, she and the rest of the cast just can't salvage the hopeless writing.

Visually, the show looks like a pale imitation of the Oscar winning short. I recognize the show was made with a different animation studio as the animation here was provided by Atomic Cartoons whereas the short was animated by 6 Point Harness, a subsidiary of Mondo Media. Both, however are a joint collaboration with Sony, Lion Forge Animation, and Matthew A. Cherry Entertainment, with the show also being financed by Carl Jones Studios. The end result is a show that looks like the short in stills, but not in motion. The characters have the same appealing, African American abstract art style look with the characters having rounded heads, unique hair styles, and colorful attire. The backgrounds also have look like they were painted with watercolors and gives Chicago a really illustrated look. The problem arises in the actual animation and oh brother from another mother is it BAD! The actual movements of the characters are so stiff, the facial expressions are restricted to their character models, and when they walk it's like they're floating on the bottom of the screen. There's also don't do the daydream sequences any favors as they're visually unimpressive and superfluous. The creative body language, great cinematography, and expressive faces from the short are long gone and in their place is just flat, unimpressive, and stilted animation.

This show is the disaster hair day of animation! Young Love is everything the Oscar winning short is most certainly NOT! It's not well written, it's not funny, it's not well characterized, it's not well acted, it's not even well animated! All this show accomplishes is be a prime example I how NOT to make a cartoon! It more than deserves the worst fate to bestow on a piece of entertainment this bad: to be ignored and forgotten! Do NOT watch Young Love! Spare yourself the crushing disappointment and just watch Hair Love. It's on YouTube and it's only under 7 minutes. You'll be much better off watching the short than this atrocious animated series -.-