THE PRINCE Is awesome

The Prince, centred around the British Royal Family

HBO decided they wanted to add their own example to this genre

with their adult animated “comedy” . You know it’s gonna be bad when Disney won’t touch it with ten-foot-pole, despite it being made by a studio they own. And the only promotion you see for it is an uninspiring trailer released the day before the show itself.

That is a sure sign of confidence. Oh, and I challenge you to read *that* tagline without cringing. But I of course am in the perfect position to offer my thoughts on this travesty! Since I am in fact, so marvellously British, that I piss tea, poop curry and sweat opium. (M: Literally all of those things you're people stole from other countries though ). And we’d f*cking do it again! A dead giveaway that this show was going to be bad was this generic artstyle that every single mediocre adult animated comedy uses nowadays. Presumably because that’s what a bunch of suits have decided sells best, even if it makes the animators want to drown themselves in battery acid. And if you’re thinking “Hey, this looks like yet another Family Guy clone!”. Well, that’s not a coincidence, since Gary Janetti, the show’s creator and voice of the main character, is a producer and writer for Family Guy.

Which explains a lot. I’ve heard The Prince described as a Family Guy cutaway gag that got its own show. But at least Family Guy is capable of being funny on occasion.

But the Prince on the other hand,

Is painfully unfunny.

“Pleasant weather?” “Stop jabbering you two! We’re not Italians!”. It’s one of the least funny comedies I’ve ever seen, second only to Netflix’s Hoops. But Hoops was so obnoxious and irritating that it made me want to peel my skin off with a spoon. Whereas The Prince is just… sad.

“God, I’m so hot for you baby!” “I’m… so hot… for you too…”. But then would you expect any less from an idea that started as a lame meme on Instagram? “I said Greta DUMBERG is more like it!” *Nervous laughter* “Don't laugh if you don't think it’s funny.”. Alright then. I could count the number of times I laughed *with* The Prince on one hand. After I’ve put that hand in a blender. “But I’m not a royalist. They’re so useless.” “Yeah, kind of like real estate agents.” “Show me the house I’ve already seen online.”. Okay, that one was kinda funny.

“Phillip, you look so handsome in candlelight!”. Yeah I liked that one. “What’s this about again?” “Mostly poor children singing about how hungry they are.” “So, a comedy.” *Laughs* Yeah that one was pretty good. Aaaaaaaand they ruined it. There are of course aspects of comedy that are subjective, and you’ll always find somebody that can laugh at anything. Hell, just look at Melissa McCarthy’s career. But there are other aspects of comedy that concern the craft itself, that make the difference between good and bad comedy. And in that regard, The Prince is a colossal flop.

I was actually surprised when the show *did* land a joke or an emotional moment. Because it happens more rarely than our Prime Minister BorisJohnson acknowledging his bastard children. “How come you’re prepared to comment on otherpeople’s children when youwon’t talk about your own?” “Well actually I don’t comment on other people’s children-” “I’ve got to read it again to you, are you serious?!” “The children are ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate.” “How many children doyou have? I have to ask this question.” “Look I- I- I love my children very much-” “How many are there?” “But they are *not*standing in this election!” “No?”.

It kills what might have been decent jokes through either poor execution, dragging the jokes out too long, or by being about as subtle as a prostate exam with a crowbar. “Yummy mummy mummy mummy mummy!” “You sound like a f*cking idiot. That’s why you’re not king, in case you’re wondering.”. It also falls into the trapof thinking that “adult comedy ” means “swearing and gross out humour.” “Welcome, your majesty.” *BURP* “Excuse me. Thanks.”.

Which *can* be funny given the right execution and context. But just having the Queen say “F*ck” isn’t funny in-and-of-itself. “Are those those f*cking tarts I like?!” “Hey, who do you have to f*ck to get a mimosa around here?!” “He’s not giving that one arose? But he just f*cked her!”. Nor is just having a staff member say: “I have to take a shit.” “Oh my god I have to sh*t so bad!”. Honey.

I really really have to shit.

Why aren’t you laughing….

It’s not funny. The cartoon man said it was funny though…. And swearing is something you should do in moderate amounts, otherwise it loses its impact and comes across as trying too hard. “Time to turn the f*ck up!” “Yes, it’s Buckingham Palace you f*cking idiot!” “I WANT THOSE F*CKING TARTS!” “He’ll take care of you.” “Sweetheart, I’m the f*cking queen of England!” “She’s such a bad bitch!”. Was this written by a teenager?! A lot of the time, when the show *thinks* it has a punchline, it actually doesn’t. So I kept asking myself: “What’s the joke?”, “How is this meant to be funny?”. And if you have to ask why the jokes are funny, then they’re bad jokes. And they’re either just straight-up not funny, don’t make any sense, or they’re the same ones we’ve all been hearing for years or even decades.

“F*ck that! Those f*cking f*ckers!” “F*ck” “And that’s her first word.”. Truly groundbreaking comedy. They could get away with being unoriginal if they were at least amusing, but they aren’t. “Hehe, arseholes!”. And what’s worse, they repeat the same jokes over and over again. “Get the medic!” “I’m on break, brah.” “Phillip sh*t all over the stairs again. I’d go up, but I’m on break.” “Can you get me some mixed nuts?” “I’m on break.” (((Why is it funny that she’s always on break?))) (((Why is that funny?!))). Whenever the characters appear, you know exactly what the joke is going to be.

The Queen is really mean, just because. “Excuse me- ARGH!” “EVERYONE STOP F*CKING STARTLING ME!”. Prince Phillip is a husk on the verge of death and actually does die in one episode. Which by their own admission, means that the show has already aged really badly! Prince Charles is a resentful mummy’s boy who wants his mum to die so that he can have the throne. “She’s had her go, now it’s my turn! I’m not a little boy any longer!” “I don’t have to go running whenever she-” QUEEN: “Charles, hurry up! We’re leaving!” “Coming, Mummy!”. Which has been a running joke in the UK since even before I was born. Camilla’s there but she doesn’t speak because nobody likes her. Which isn’t wrong, to be fair.

William and Kate are a stereotypical unhappy married couple. “A little early for a fourth glass, don’t you think?” “Why don’t you go hit another ball through a f*cking loop?!” “They hate each other!” “What?”. Harry is an oblivious moron. “Uh… hey?” “Did you know it’s cold in there?” “Yeah, it’s the refrigerator, Harry.” “Must be an American thing.”. Meghan Markle’s acting career has gone down the toilet. And so on, ad nauseam, predictable as clockwork. Yeah, that is not surprising. You can’t even really call this a parody, because a parody has to bear *some* relation to reality, exaggerating a certain quality in order to poke fun at it.

But just making the Royal Family into stupid assholes isn’t satire, and neither is it funny.

Like, it’s weird they would imply that

Prince harry would struggle outside the palace walls.

“Life is hard, most people struggle!” “I have red hair, I know struggle.”. Mate, he fought on the front lines in the most dangerous province in Afghanistan! Whereas the only struggle these writers face is trying not to wet themselvesevery time someone farts. And this is coming from someone who isn’ta royalist. I don’t reallycare about the royal family. Criticise or parody them all you want. They’re public figures, and in that sense, they’re fair game.

But there’s something unavoidably distasteful about centring a lot of the jokes around actual children, who are neither responsible, nor in a position to respond. Royal or not, that’s still punching down. The central character is heir to the throne Prince George. And they’ve made him a monumental piece of sh*t to everyone around him, especially to his manservant Owen. “Urgh, not the dead wife again. Babe, move on!”. Wow y- you’re a fucking sociopath! What the fuck! “I mean, kill me now, am I right, O?” “Yes. Kill me now…”.

They’ve also made him incredibly effeminate. Because gay child funny, haha. “Unfollow! Byeeee! Don’t let me do that again, by the way, pull me back, O!”. He comes across like a bargain bin Stewie Griffin, but without the charisma and with an actual child being bullied. His younger brother Louis is a brutish football hooligan. “Oi, tea!” “Thank you!”. Because violent baby funny, haha. And Charlotte is quite literally a Russian bot, because the baby spy trope hasn’t been played out to death already.

“You know what, f*ck him! What a mingebag!” “Whoa, easy! He’s eleven.”. It’s pretty rich of them to put that line in when they’re making jokes at the expense of real 8, 6 and a 3-year-olds. And it’s funny because they could have usedthis opportunity to ruthlessly mockthis sweaty pizza-munching nonce! But thought that bullying children would be less controversial! *Laugh* Priorities, right?! They put this up bullsh*t disclaimer at the start of the episodes to deflect the criticism that theyknew they were going to get.

Which you can’t… you can’t just do that! That’s- that’s not a get out of jail free card! If you’re going to parody the royals, at least own it, you pussies. Or just make up a completely fake royal family and make the comedy about them. Then you wouldn’t have this problem. As it is, the show is just insulting, without anything meaningful or humorous to justify it. In ye olden times, the writers would probably have been hung, drawn and quartered.

Probably the worst insult isimplying that any member ofthe royal family would enjoy The Big Bang Theory. “BIG BANG THEORY!” “Later! He’s obsessed with that show.”. F*cking plebs….

And I’m pretty sure the entire royal

Family would rather abdicate than say “vacation.” “you know, this could be like a vacaton for you too, o!”.

It’s very obvious that this was made

By americans for americans, and most of the humour and references would fall completely flat to british audiences.

Although aside from Charles & Philip, they all have surprisingly good teeth considering American stereotypes about the British. *Thick English accent* “Well, if it isn’t Owen!”. Aaaaand there it is.

“This is a sexy family! You know, for British people.”. So its animation is boring, its humour sucks, and its parody fails. But its story can’t carry the show either. The storylines are all dreadful, and there’s barely any through-line for each episode. It’s just a bunch of events that bear only the smallest relation to each other, if any at all. For example, the episode “Charity” is based around an upcoming charity event, which the royal family does a lot of. Okay, cool. But the event lasts only one minute in the episode, and nothing significant happens in it.

It’s just a bunch of barely-related stuff that happens before and after. The episode has nothing to do with charity at all. What?! Same with the episode “Date Night”. In a twelve minute episode, the date itself about one minute. Which in fairness, is how long my dates used to last. And during the trilogy of episodes that are meant to be about a high school musical, they spend like 5 minutes on the musical, maybe? And they don’t even show the f*cking play! Oh yeah, as if they couldn’t make this more insufferable, they try to make a musical out of it towards the end! “Do I have look and the voice for the paaaart?!” [voice cracking].

URGH… *Phillip screams*. There are multiple plot threads in each episode, but the runtime is too short to develop them properly, and they rarely go anywhere.

“First we’ll need a theme.”. Yeah, exactly. And since every character is unlikeable in some way, you really don’t care what happens to them. By far the most interesting character is “Kevin”, one of the troglodyte-things that lives below Buckingham palace. Who watches all of his family get burned to death in front of him, and then plays the long game rising through the ranks of the palace staff to claim his revenge. Now *there’s* a character arc! In the final scene, he is shown carrying a tray of poisoned tarts to the royal dinner. Yes, they end it on a cliffhanger. Bold of them to assume anyone would want to watch another season of this crap.

Oh and can we just point out how annoying it is that shows keep doing this? Leaving everything unresolved and thus making another season necessary for closure, but then it gets cancelled so we never get it? Yeah, please stop f*cking doing that! My canon ending is that he kills them all and burns down the palace.

It’s what helps me sleep at night. Well, what about the performances? Are they at least good? Well… not really, no. They decided to emulate the Bojack Horseman approach of hiring famousactors to play the roles. But unlike in Bojack, here their voice talents aren’t good enough to justify the sidelining of professional voice actors. So I can only assume this was done in a cynical attempt to help market the show. Oh, and there’s some D-list celebrity cameos.

Just because.

“What the f*ck is going on with Harry?” “HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT HARRY?!” “I’ll say whatever I want, bitch!”. They did this joke on Ru Paul’s Drag Race, and it was funnier there. “Say it one more time!” “Husband- Harry Hamlin- DON’T TALK ABOUT MY HUSBAND!” “Harry Hamlin- I love Harry Hamlin!”. The worst sin The Prince commits, though, is that it is *unbelievably* boring. I’d be amazed if anyone aside from me was able to sit through even the first episode. And I had to sit on a cheese-grater just to occasionally feel something. The only positive about the show is that it’s mercifully short, with each episode lasting around 10-12 minutes. But it’s actually quite impressive how long each episode *feels*, versus how short it actually is.

And if you can believe it, they keep doing various unnecessary things to dragout the runtime even more! Even the intro is boring as hell! And the opening and closing song in no way conveys the intended tone and feel of the show. Surely that’s the most basic thing, and they still managed to f*ck it up! Oh, and any diversity points they might have earned from having a gay couple in it are cancelled out by them making George into a little queen. Not only is The Prince stupid and boring, it’s also totally pointless! It does nothing well, has nothing interesting to say, and adds absolutely nothing to the genre. That one skit where the Queen meets James Bond before the London Olympics wasfunnier than this entire show. *Coughs* “Good evening, Mr Bond.” “Good evening, Your Majesty.”. I’m just imagining the writers chortling to themselves that they made so many funnies after a good night of huffing paint. But then when they showed the studio executives the final result, everybody realised how badly they done goofed. But the contracts had already been signed and the money spent, so they had to limply push it out the back door just to keep the lawyers happy.

Was there really enough demand in the US for an adult animated comedy about the British Royal Family? Do you guys really care about them that much? Imagine being the suckers that greenlit this show! You’re never getting that moneyand time back! And I’ve already wastedenough of *our* time talking about it! This show is an insult to comedy.

There is no reason for you to watch it, not even morbid curiosity or a patriotic duty to hate it. It is *almost* the worstanimated comedy I’ve ever seen. Imagine a sh*ttier version of Family Guy. *Another* sh*ttier version of Family Guy. If you hate family guy, you’ll hate this even more. And if you like Family Guy, you’ll probably still think this is sh*t. Now let this be a lesson that not every weird and wacky idea needs to be greenlit.

Netflix! “What the fuck?!” “No idea…”. M “But didn’t everyone used to call you the little prince when you were a baby?”. Uh, anyway, everybody go like and subscribe! I keep forgetting to promote it in articles (because I’m an idiot) but after much demand, I now have an official Minecraft Server! It’s a survivial multiplayer server with no raiding or griefing, where you can hang out and mess around with other fans of the channel (or non-fans, it’s all good).

We’ve already got a nice friendly community going on in there, supported by its own discord server, and you’re all more than welcome to join! I’ll even be in there myself from time to time. It’s play.cynicalminecraft.net, check the description for a link. Oh and there’s also a D&D Discord server where you can play Dungeons & Dragons and other roleplaying games online with other fans. Again, link in the description. Thank you for reading this rather patriotic article.