Son of Scorn

A bad idea brought to life through bad animation

Sometimes you get together with your friends, drink a little bit, have a couple of laughs, and come up with some bad ideas.This is one of those bad ideas.

“Son of Zorn” is a hybrid live-action/animated comedy about Zorn, a big hero from a cartoon world that is clearly out of place. He misreads situations, says the wrong things, and acts without thinking as he tries to reconnect with his real-world family. It’s actually a pretty good premise but it looks like it’ll fall flat in execution.

Zorn looks really bad in the real-world. The flash animation used on Zorn and other animated elements looks choppy and date it stands out awkwardly amongst the rest of the world.

Here is the thing. We’ve been here before. We’ve mixed live-action with animation long before “Son of Zorn.” Look at “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” Look at “Space Jam.” Those are both over 20-years-old and they look good. Put them next to Zorn and they don’t just look good — they look amazing. “Son of Zorn” just looks like the kind of thing a talented 16-year-old would upload to Youtube after 3 months of work. How a team — keyword “team” — of animators made this in 3 years is beyond me.

Of course, there are some shows with bad animation that are enjoyable. Those are usually held up by smart, funny writing. “Son of Zorn” is neither smart nor funny. Instead it comes off as boring and lazy. It rests on the premise that Zorn is big and strong and dumb and sexist. That’s it.

Overall, “Son of Zorn” looks bad. The animation looks bad. The jokes are bad. The overall appeal is that it’s bad, which is bad in and of itself.

Hopefully, the people behind Zorn can sober up from the wild rager that led them to come up with this idea. It might be too late to stop it from airing, but there’s still time to try and cover up for the decisions they made while under the influence.

You can watch the trailer below and catch “Son of Zorn” every Sunday at 8:00 PM on FOX.