In theory, it should be impressive any time a YouTuber, especially someone no one has ever heard of on their YouTube channel before, gets a big enough following to win a TV show or movie. Unfortunately, the YouTuber's shows and movies have always been awful, from the Fred movies to Smosh: The Movie to Netflix's Haters Back Off. Oddballs is another failed attempt by a YouTuber to transition to a bigger platform, so much so that not even fans of TheOdd1sOut will find much pleasure in this show, other than the novelty of watching a YouTuber they follow on Netflix.
Oddballs follows a bubble-shaped boy named James (named after YouTuber James Rallison himself) and his best friend the alligator Max as they live their crazy lives. If that sounds boring, that's because it is: the show doesn't have a strong enough premise to warrant 12 episodes, especially episodes as long as they are. Rallison's videos average around eight or nine minutes, but Oddballs episodes average 16 minutes, and oh my gosh, that's the noticeable length. Each episode is a tall order to beat - by the time you've finished the third episode, it'll feel like you've finished six.
Creators: Ethan Banville, James Rallison
Stars: James Rallison, Julian Gant, Kimberly Brooks
The length of the episode doesn't make much sense either. Cartoons typically last eleven minutes per episode, such as The Loud House, The Amazing World of Gumball, We Bare Bears, and The Cuphead Show. If an animated show is longer, it's usually because it features overarching plotlines like The Legend of Korra or a large cast of characters like The Simpsons. Oddballs has zero continuity and only two main characters, James and Max. There's really no reason for its run time and the program suffers a lot because of it.
But even if the episodes were shorter, there still wouldn't be anything on this show worth watching. All the characters are tremendously annoying, especially the two main ones. James is loud and irregular. Max is unpleasant and irritating. The two constantly do the dumbest actions and react in the dumbest way, both acting like little kids desperate for attention. The writers seem to believe that the more "wacky" the main characters are, the more likeable they'll be, but they achieve the exact opposite: James and Max are two of the most obnoxious characters in any movie or show this year, animated or otherwise. .
Here's another unbearable thing about the show: its humor. I didn't expect the James Rallison show to be primarily for kids, but that may also be because of how immature the humor is. Grotesque, hyper-realistic images of faces, buttock shots, characters saying random things in weird ways—these are jokes even fourth-graders wouldn't find funny. Cartoons like SpongeBob and The Fairly OddParents took a couple of seasons before they ended up relying on this type of humor. Oddballs has taken that as a starting point.
The show is also very, very random, and not in a fun Monty Python kind of way. It feels hopeless, like they're trying to make up for a lack of organic ingenuity by making the characters behave in the weirdest way possible. There's a scene where James complains that his flip phone is too old and then uses it as a thermometer in his drink. How is that supposed to work, exactly? What is the auction? It's a flip phone, it's not like James downloaded a thermometer app and was too dumb to realize it wouldn't work or anything. It's a half joke with the only punchline being a character doing something silly.
Another type of humor that this show has in abundance is screen humor, the type of humor where something illogical is explained away because the show recognizes that said something is illogical and then moves on. This is a cartoon - no one is looking for realism here and the meta-humor gets grating fast. It's the spectacle equivalent of having a conversation with someone who constantly mentions how annoying he is being. Yes, we know you're being annoying. You are making things worse by being aware of it.
The humor on this show fails and fails hard, and because of that, it's incredibly apparent how little thought went into writing this show and how little the episodes have to offer other than terrible jokes. The humor of The Cuphead Show also fell apart, but it had gorgeous animation, colorful worlds, and even some likable characters. Oddballs has none of that.
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