Ugly Americans Volume One DVD Review

 Ugly Americans Volume One DVD cover - image copyright 2010 Paramount Home Video
Monsters living and working alongside humans in New York City? That's the premise of Ugly Americans, the Comedy Central animated show created by Devin Clark and developed by former Simpsons writer David Stern. It follows the trials and tribulations of Mark Lilly, a bureaucrat trying to help vampires, werewolves and other monsters integrate into American society.
While the show has its moments, it currently relies more on its concept and design for its success, rather than execution.



Paramount Home Video Distributes Comedy Central's Ugly Americans, Starring Matt Oberg, Natasha Leggero
Mark Lilly (Matt Oberg) just wants everyone to get along. A counselor at the Department of Integration, he helps a bewildering assortment of monsters find their feet (or whatever they use for locomotion) in modern-day New York City. However, Mark's life is made more difficult by alcoholic wizard co-worker Leonard (Randy Pearlstein), his succubus superior Callie Maggotbone (Natasha Leggero) who regularly seduces him, a law enforcement officer Frank Grimes (Larry Murphy) who would rather shoot non-humans than understand them, and demon boss Twayne the Boneraper (Michael-Leon Wooley) who holds everyone around him in contempt.
Oh, and Mark's zombie roommate Randall (Kurt Metzger) wants to eat his brains.
Not surprisingly, Ugly Americans is heavy on the referential humour: the angular art design pays homage to EC horror comics of the 1950's and many monsters are parodies of classic designs from Hollywood. Many of the references will fly over younger viewers' heads: Callie Maggotbone's mother is clearly modeled after Mia Farrow from Rosemary's Baby.
That said, the animation (courtesy of Brooklyn-based Augenblick Studios and Toronto's Cuppa Coffee Studios) is richly detailed with countless imaginative figures and sight gags slipping in and out of view. Kudos also to the dry humour in the show, and giving these mythical creatures a Noo Yawk attitude.
Unfortunately, the characters need developing. Mark is extremely bland and the writers are clearly having more fun writing gags for the more monstrous characters, which is why Mark often fades into the background. You can see the writers are gunning for the quick and easy laugh instead of figuring out how to make these characters more interesting to the viewer.
Shows like The Simpsons and South Park have built long-term success because the characters are detailed and compelling; Ugly Americans needs to do that kind of work if it wants to go toe-to-toe with the big boys.
Ugly Americans Volume One DVD Extras
Devin Clark, David Stern and producer Daniel Powell offer low-key but informative audio commentaries over the episodes. More successful is the '5-On' webisodes: Clark's hilarious animations featuring various monsters being interviewed about burning issues of the day, such as out-of-control celebutantes and hip-hop obscenity.
There's also a sneak peek at an upcoming episode (Leonard's afraid that his wand no longer works properly, a common affliction among wizards over 400), and several still galleries.
Ugly Americans Still Has a Ways to Go to Achieve Its Potential
Ugly Americans is not the funniest thing since South Park, but it has the potential to take on Trey Parker and Matt Stone's long-running show once it starts filling out its characters and getting comfortable in the world it's created. Right now, most of the jokes are in the background but once Stern and Clark start creating characters the audience will identify with instead of gunning for the quick gag, this show might fulfill its considerable promise.
As it stands, Ugly Americans Volume One gets a 2.5/5.

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