TBS planned to expand heavily into adult animation programming. The network green-lit four new animated shows between 2016 and 2018: Tarantula, Final Space, Close Enough, and The Cops. Tarantula was cancelled due to low ratings, The Cops was scrapped mid-production due to the fallout of Louis CK’s admitted sexual misconduct, and Final Space was shunted off to Adult Swim. With presumably no more options to build an animation block around, Close Enough was shelved and left in limbo for three years. Now it’s finally getting its debut on HBO Max. Fans of Regular Show will immediately recognize its visual style and over-the-top climaxes, but may also find similar flaws from J.G. Quintel’s original show as well.
Close Enough shifts its point of view from Regular Show’s burnout-aesthetic of twentysomethings within a vaguely bleak setting and opaque career and life pursuits to the complex, hazy world of millennials “settling down”–i.e., of living and surviving in your thirties. Quintel’s work, at its best, pinpoints the absolute baffling and confusing minutiae of “adulting,” and while that word as a meme is annoying, it speaks to the ever-present question of how to adjust from, or how to find a modern balance between, the freewheeling quasi-dependency of one’s teenage and college years, to the more grounded, self-reliant reality of being an adult. Combined with the truth of a lost social contract allowing a clear path to stability and security, Close Enough has the potential to be a defining show of the 2020s.
Close Enough starts out brimming with potential: We meet Josh (Quintel) and Emily (Gabrielle Walsh), a married couple trying to help their daughter, Candice (Jessica DiCicco) with a school project, but Josh gets caught up in silly distraction—a zoot suit, a talking parrot. The episode is awash with the kind of offbeat, nonsensical humor that Regular Show is known for, and like that show, it escalates into outlandish, unexpected insanity during the climax. Josh and Emily run into a bunch of street urchins that assist the couple with their project, only for them to be revealed as a bunch of creepy old people who are obsessed with being “parented.” It’s bizarre and ridiculous, but the Close Enough creative staff keeps enough focus on the broad struggles young, new parents have in relation to their care: looking for easy ways out, getting distracted by nostalgia, the desire for easy praise and appreciation.
These are universal themes, sure, but Close Enough homes in on the characters and the specificity of that transition between adolescence and adulthood. That insight keeps Close Enough cooking at a good pace, generally staying away from easy generational differences gags or “millennials killed [blank]” quips. It also allows the show to approach cliched plotting in unique ways. A later episode shows Candice attempting to escape the insanity of her overcrowded living situation by getting lost in the world of open houses; it eventually dovetails into her being trapped in a fake sitcom-esque existence, with a fairly clever ending. Close Enough also has its central couple living with two other people, Alex (Jason Mantzoukas) and Bridgette (Kimiko Glenn), a divorced couple that mostly functions as overactive foils to Josh and Bridgette; Mantzoukas and Glenn bring so much energy and vitality to their roles that they almost threaten to overtake the main characters.
As the show goes on, Close Enough’s flaws become more apparent, mostly due to structural and premise-based decisions. Each episode comprises two 11-minute segments; after the first few episodes, the segments suddenly start to take on distinct A and B plots, with little time to develop either. This contributes to a rushed, discombobulated feel that interrupts the development of characters and plots, and threatens to freewheel into Adult Swim-like nonsense. Later, we learn that Josh and Emily live with Alex and Bridgette not due to the sheer high cost of living in suburban Los Angeles, but so their daughter can go to a better school district. Close Enough was created three years before the issues of inequality at all levels, including education, vaulted to the forefront of contemporary discourse, but still, there’s something quietly ugly in how the show depicts the public school environment (jokes about “the bad neighborhood” are hard to pull off without coming off dismissive). And lest one think it was a throwaway one-off joke, a later gag seems to punch down pretty hard on single moms. Close Enough is too absurd and too focused on that adolescent-to-adulthood journey to get too caught up in examining how it plays within a social context. But jokes like that demonstrate how narrow its lens can be in the overall direction of the show. Similarly, Close Enough’s storytelling is so specific to Josh’s concerns that we don’t get to really see Walsh push Emily as a character.
Still, Close Enough has enough sharp gags and snappy commentary on its world to keep viewers interested, even as it sort of overwhelms itself. It riffs on non-traditional schooling, the use of free time as an excuse for finishing up tasks, the recognition of no longer enjoying the perks of youth, and the struggle of reconnecting with old friends and old lives. Late in the series, Josh and Alex try to bond over Jim Carrey films like they did when they were younger; Emily and Bridgette attempt to do the same by writing comedy songs. This same episode also includes an anthropomorphic dog, a mad scientist, hypnotized animals with human parts and clothing, and “Weird Al” Yankovic. Quintel is up to his old tricks even in this new context, though those tricks clearly need updating.
32 Comments
When can I watch it on my Fire stick or Roku though?
Does anyone think this show has a future, or is it DOA and Warner is just dumping stock?
I was wondering the same. If the show finished production on the first season then it seems likely that it’s DOA since a second season would require rehiring all the animators and other staff (which is possible but rare). I hope it’s not DOA since I’ve been waiting for this show to premiere but odds are not in its favor.
Quintel (or somebody involved with the show, anyway) recently claimed that they only just recently finished production on the first season, but *if* that claim is true, it still raises questions as to why it was so far behind Final Space and The Cops in its production cycle and why TBS would have teased it as coming soon all the way back in 2017.
Quintel said the trailer TBS released in 2017 was all fabricated content they used to pitch the show, so it didn’t enter production until after that. Season 1 was confirmed to be finished around 2019-ish so they’ve only been sitting on it for about a year.
Yeah, that’s what I was referring to, but it’s still odd that production would have been at such an early stage when TBS released the 2017 trailer considering the show was supposedly originally planned to air as part of a block with Final Space (which premiered in Spring 2018) and The Cops (which was scrapped in early 2018 when it was already well into production) and considering they explicitly stated that it was “Coming Soon” when they released the trailer.
I think it’s doomed unless the ratings are high because it was shelved for a few years, so even if it is renewed, the time to get a new season will be a year or two because it will be a mostly new production crew.
Question is: Are all of the characters being voiced by the right gender-identity, ethnicity/ age/etc.?
A former Animation Guild member with a very good track record (confirmed AT Distant Lands, Infinity Train S3, and OK K.O.’s cancellation before they were announced, among other things) said they’ve finished production on 2 seasons so far, with a possible 3rd season pickup if this Max release does well. So there’s hope! https://tombcartoonmonkeyskeleton.blogspot.com/2020/06/work-around-town-2020-sum-total-more-or.html
I hope so, but I doubt it. I mean, it was supposed to premiere years ago. Any order they had is done and, well, how are you gonna get renewed if you can’t even get debuted? The show’s been done for a long time and likely everybody (save Quintel) has gone on to other stuff. I hope it comes back because I like Quintel and I remember really liking the previews for this back in… Jesus, 2016? … but I don’t see it as being anything more than a fun one-and-done. … that is, unless it just kills.
HBO Max has been pushing it as original content and it’s news it was supposed to be on TBS due out 3+ years ago. Right now, I’m going with a ‘wait and see’ attitude since it seems likely it won’t unless HBO Max sees stellar ratings and they think they can pump out animation as the sole option for the forseeable future. If they’re using computer animation software (which at this point I imagine is almost a requirement) they could get a 2nd season out in a few months and get it up by November/December which is going to be important as the entire pipeline by then will be dry.
in what world do you think they could get a second season out in a few months? Do you think computer animation means you hit a button and computers do the animating?
In what world do you think with HBO desperate for content that they wouldn’t hire more animators to make up the difference in the time to produce it?
Oh wait, you’re an asshole on the internet. 😀
On average it takes about 9 months to create A SINGLE EPISODE of animation, but youre right. They can just hire more animators! That’s how TV works!
Again, 9 months is in relation to writing and storyboarding.You are saying this to ‘not be an assh0le’ yet you somehow managed it. Bravo. 😀
I have no problem being an asshole if it means more people have correct expectations about how animation is made. And no, 9 months is not in relation to writing and storyboarding. Most animated television shows that have the level of quality we expect to see on tv usually storyboard their episodes in about 5 weeks. Writing takes maybe a little less. Then every single background for every shot needs to be drawn and colored. And none of this is taking into account executive notes that happen on every step of the process
/golfclapNow tell everybody how your dad is owner of nintendo!I’ll be expecting another reply. I won’t reply to it though, either you work in the industry and you’re a shitty communicator or (and this is where I’m going to assume is the truth) you’re an asshole who doesn’t really know shit about the process. ^_^
**picks nose**…**fingers butthole**
And I’m not saying this to be an asshole. I’m saying this because we live in a world where people tweet death threats at Dan Harmon for not making Rick and Morty episodes faster. Unless you want it to look like South Park, animation takes a long time and is extremely expensive as it is.
I recall a second season was in very early preproduction when the show was still supposed to premiere on TBS, but I haven’t heard anything since. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are scripts and storyboards for new episodes lying around on Warner Bros property somewhere, though nothing approaching any complete episodes.
“there’s something quietly ugly in how the show depicts the public school environment (jokes about “the bad neighborhood” are hard to pull off without coming off dismissive)“you think that’s bad, you should see all the actual people who think like this which is obviously the reason they needed to satirize it on their show
What is this satire you speak of, I vaguely recall this concept from the before-times
popularized by the one and only AOC of course
Why is “adulting” a mystery? It’s basically the thing you should be spending the first 22 years of your life figuring out.
I like that I was able to spot Mantzoukas was a going to be a voice actor from the article’s header image.
I love that anytime he’s on an animated show, you can immediately tell which character is voiced by Jason Mantzoukas just by looking at it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a man, a kid, a bear, whatever. They’ve always got the look.
It’s what Lovecraft described as “the Heynong look”.
Mr. Manoogian on “Bob’s Burgers” might be an exception, but that could just be since I didn’t know going in that he’d be voicing a character.
“Tarantula was cancelled due to low ratings”Tarantula was never given a chance. They dumped all of the episodes online before premiering any of them on TV, then inexplicably skipped the first two episodes when actually airing them on TV (despite them being called back to in later episodes), leaving those two unaired, and aired the rest of the season as two episodes a week during the holiday season.
i’m shocked that something farting around an industry hard drive this long sounds as relevant as it does.
My wife and I decided to check out this show. We never watched Regular Show, so we are new to the creator’s brand of humor. Anyway, despite being a bit uneven we’ve found it very hilarious so far. Although we have no roommates, we’re mid-to late thirty somethings with a 4 year old daughter in Southern California. So it’s been pretty on point. Episode 2 “Logan’s Run’d” was on point as we have also been excited to do chores/errands when we’ve been alone without our kid. Episode 3 “Skate Dad” had me in absolute stitches considering I also recently decided to get back into skateboarding after a hiatus throughout my entire adulthood. I have also already embarrassed myself at least once in front of my daughter by eating it pretty bad. So far this show has been incredibly relevant and a good distraction.
Binged all of it. Great stuff. Makes me miss regular show too