Creature Comforts America: The Complete First Season

Based on the 2003 British series Creature Comforts—which was in turn inspired by acclaimed animator Nick Park's Oscar-winning 1989 short of the same name—this 2007 first season of Creature Comforts America serves up seven repetitious and monotonous half-hour episodes in which the voices of “real Americans” talking about everyday life are paired to visuals of stop-motion clay-animated animals. Unfortunately, none of the subtle underlying social commentary or sweet studies of ordinary people characteristic of the original British series comes across here—unless accidental and inadvertent statements about the out-and-proud crassness of American culture count. To wit: the first episode opens with two men talking, quite obviously, about the bouquet of a glass of wine, while the animation features two dogs sniffing another dog's butt. Charming. But that's pretty much par for the course in these conversations about fears and phobias, work, love, pet peeves, various celebs that “real Americans” have been told they look like, and more. Instead of capturing the wonderful wisdom to be found in the ordinary, this series puts ordinary life in the most banal light possible (only three of the seven episodes collected here actually aired on CBS in June 2007 before the show was yanked). DVD extras include additional scenes and “Live Action Videos,” which are not—as you might expect—footage of the “real people” who supplied the voices for the shows, but rather members of the production team lip-synching along with those voices. The point being? Optional. (M. Johanson)