NBC’s ‘Pride’ at Stake with New Animated Series
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Eager for new comedies to replace “Friends” and “Frasier,” NBC takes a big gamble with this week’s debut of a costly, computer-animated series about a sexually frisky family of talking lions in Siegfried & Roy’s famed Las Vegas act.
“Father of the Pride,” which premieres on Tuesday, has drawn mixed early reviews and raised advertiser eyebrows for a ribald sensibility that NBC and producers at DreamWorks describe as “edgy” but some critics see as being at odds with the show’s family-friendly look.
The launch of “Pride” also comes less than a year after animal trainer Roy Horn — depicted in cartoonish style with partner Siegfried Fischbacher — was severely mauled by one of his tigers during a live stage performance last Oct. 3.
NBC executives acknowledge that “Pride” is a risky undertaking for the network, whose last animated show, “God, the Devil and Bob,” survived less than a month in 2000.
The General Electric Co.-owned broadcaster is spending, according to the Los Angeles Times, $1.6 million per half-hour episode on the series, making it the costliest entry on its slate of new prime-time offerings.
The stakes also are high for DreamWorks, which plans to spin off its animation studio in an initial public stock offering expected this fall.
Computer-generated imagery, or CGI, has become a darling of movie audiences with box office blockbusters like DreamWorks’ fairy tale satires “Shrek” and “Shrek 2.” But few animated series have achieved hit status on U.S. television outside Fox, where “The Simpsons” and “King of the Hill” are staples.
With NBC’s two marquee sitcoms — “Friends” and “Frasier” — having left the air in May, NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker told the Times his network is willing to take chances to score a new hit.
FRISKY FELINES
Still, the show’s sometimes bawdy brand of humor has critics and Madison Avenue executives wondering whether “Pride” is tame enough for kids to watch with their parents or sophisticated enough for adults to enjoy on their own.
The debut episode features a scene in which father lion Larry, voiced by “Roseanne” star John Goodman, enthuses about getting the chance to make love to his mate, Kate (Cheryl Hines of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) when their cubs are away.
“It may be 9 o’clock in New York, but right here it’s mountin’ time,” he proclaims, shaking his haunches.
Larry and Kate also take it upon themselves to assist in the courtship of a pair of giant pandas (the female panda is voiced by Lisa Kudrow of “Friends”).
Seeking to avoid potential complaints from parents uneasy about explaining the intricacies of animal husbandry, NBC began in mid-July advertising the show as an “adult comedy.”
But Carl Reiner, the veteran writer-producer who played Alan Brady on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and co-stars on “Pride” as Larry’s curmudgeonly father-in-law, dismissed suggestions that the show is too risque for family viewing.
“If children do watch it, the things that they discuss as a family of lions can easily be discussed as a family of humans,” he said in a recent conference call with reporters.
Daily Variety TV critic Brian Lowry said the sexual innuendoes that fly between Larry and Kate are “not really adding much to a very old sitcom staple.”
The attack on Horn forced the real-life Siegfried & Roy to close their act, but both insisted NBC go ahead with the TV show. The two are co-executive producers.
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