The latest addition to Netflix’s ever-bulging originals is Paradise PD. It’s an animated series, with a barrage of hilarious insults that are meant for adults who don’t feel attacked at the drop of a hat. The show couldn’t have been made for television. The script would have either gone through several changes, or the final cut would have looked different to appeal to the sensibilities of the TV audience.
The adult comedy, created by Waco O'Guin and Roger Black, alternates between the dark web of realities and the imaginations of a dynamic duo that’s not afraid to make fun of Joe Biden, Johnny Depp, or Elon Musk. While Depp (of course, the animated version) is thrashed for starring as Willy Wonka, Musk appears in a risqué scene where he’s mocked for the Tesla cars. These bits aren’t, in any way, connected to the main story, and, yet, they are brought into the frames to deliver humor.
The constant urge to stray away from the plot to make absurdity its main focus seems to have helped the creators in coming up with a universe that allows them to make space for talking animals and thinking machines. Some viewers might feel that the jokes are too on the nose, but, let’s face it, there’s nothing else that Paradise PD is running after. It’s not chasing eternal glory; its only intention is to catch the scrolling eyes of the naïve Netflix binger.
The story of a bunch of small town cops who are dumber than the characters in a Harpic commercial couldn’t have relied on the strength of a coherent story anyway. The cops – Kevin, (voiced by David Herman), Gina (Sarah Chalke), Chief (Tom Kenny), Dusty and Hopson (both the characters are voiced by Dana Snyder), and Fitzgerald (Cedric Yarbrough) – are not funny on their own. They don’t run around throwing one-liners. They only react to the things that happen around them. But the police dog, Bullet (Kyle Kinane), is like none of them. He’s intelligent and cunning, and, when the clock strikes the right time, he invites his dog-friends to the station to do drugs (he has a key to the room where all the confiscated drugs are stored).
The quirky characters find different methods to unleash their morbid passivity around banal and inappropriate occasions all the time. Here, let me give you an example of a supporting character that tends to break into puns, for which Fitzgerald is a huge fan, to explain the bizarre nature of the series. Just before dying, the pun master utters, “Talk about heart-stopping action, huh,” and goes on to pull his heart out of his gaping chest. Now, tell me, how can anybody resist a chuckle when such things keep happening?
And, without sanity interrupting the proceedings, Paradise PD flows over the edges of sight gags (a drug lord’s hideout is named “Terry Two Toes Secret Hideout”) rather nicely. Another recently released Netflix series, Disenchantment, too, uses the flavour of sight gags quite innovatively. But Disenchantment is made for a much younger audience, whereas, in the case of Paradise PD, the average viewer would be a young adult. I can imagine the youth screenshotting vulgar lines and images, containing graphic nudity, to pass them around in the college WhatsApp groups they’re a part of, with cool emojis and hashtags.
Unfortunately, Paradise PD hasn’t been discovered by the thirsty millennials yet as they’re currently busy with another adult animated series, BoJack Horseman. That’s understandable because it’s one of the best shows for people who are looking to find solace in the arms of a non-judgmental sitcom that pokes at the flaws of the human psyche. In that sense, Paradise PD is a low-hanging fruit even though it hits the bull’s-eye with its wordplays.