Drawn Together - The Complete Series - DVD

Content: In the fall of 2007, an animated series launched in America that was promoted as the first animated reality show and pushed the boundaries of good taste and political correctness in its very first episode, only to regularly exceed them over the next 35 episodes. The concept of the series was as simple as it was ingenious: Eight cartoon characters live together in a house and are watched by television cameras the whole time. Any resemblance to well-known animated heroes is, of course, not at all coincidental and absolutely intentional.

The residents are Captain Leslie Hero (based on Superman), Princess Clara (the archetype of the Disney Princess), Toot Braunstein (a satire of the 1920s cartoon sex symbol Betty Boop), Foxxy Love (a parody of characters from Josie and the Pussycats), Spanky Ham (a parody of typical Internet Flash animations), Ling-Ling (who quite coincidentally resembles a certain Pikachu), the Fantsy video game hero Xandir P. Wifflebottom, and finally Woolball Sockbeard, who must have a distant relative living under the sea in a pineapple.

In the best Big Brother tradition, the eight housemates must repeatedly face various tasks, but also otherwise experience many absurd adventures that confront the viewer with all sorts of taboo-breaking. Without any form of restraint, topics such as racism, religious fanaticism, the love of guns of many Americans, homosexuality, masturbation, incest, terrorism are dealt with. But what at times seems simply tasteless is in many moments, due to the extreme exaggeration of prejudices and stereotypes, a brilliant satire, which is often so nasty that it hurts.

Drawn Together also often uses parody, whereby not only cartoons and comics, but especially movies and TV series are mercilessly through the cocoa. It can happen that a parody of The Lion King is directly followed by a homage to Hostel, that Bambi and Star Wars are parodied in the same scene and that Kevin - Home Alone follows The Graduate a short time later. It's also particularly nice when, for example, Clara warbles a typical Disney ditty, but the lyrics are highly racist, or when Ling Ling's father fails at singing Tequila karaoke, or when Captain Hero, Wooly Sockbeard and Spanky Ham get loudly upset about homosexuality while simultaneously exchanging hot kisses while spinning bottles.

Drawn Together is truly not for the faint-hearted. Dominated by violence, dysfunctional sexual behavior and the most antiquated prejudices, viewers almost have to feel ashamed at times laughing at this crude satire. But those who manage to look behind the facade of tastelessness will realize that next to the somewhat adolescent jokes lies a bitterly wicked genius that makes this series truly unique. In the complete box Drawn Together presents itself to the German fans now for the first time in uncensored version. Black bars over breasts or genitals have been removed, previously censored expletives can now be heard in all their onomatopoeic beauty. However, the episodes do not match the Unrated versions on the US DVD. Only the scenes where there is no dialogue, which would have required additional dubbing, have been added. The additional dialogue scenes are in the bonus material with the cut scenes in the original version. A compromise, with which one can live as a fan truly.

Drawn Together is just as uncensored complete box a feast for all friends of political incorrectness, for lovers of crude satire and for all who finally want to see how Disney & Co. gets kicked in the ass. But who can laugh at merciless taboo breaks only with difficulty or not at all, which should rather leave the fingers of this box.

Picture + Sound: Technically, the series is well implemented. As is actually usual for an animated series, there are no smudges and the overall sharpness is also on a very good level, as is the color scheme. There are only minor points deducted from smaller details, and here and there there is also minimal image noise, but this is only noticeable to a limited extent in a negative way. The directional mixed sound is dominated by the biting dialogues, various sound effects and also the music, however, fall short of their possibilities in the stereo mix. Good!

Extras: There are audio commentaries with the creators and voice actors for numerous episodes. The good-humored conversations are mostly very fun, but due to the lack of subtitles, can only really be enjoyed by fans who are proficient in English. Furthermore, all three seasons contain cut scenes, which are the dialogue moments from the American Unrated versions that have not been specially dubbed for the complete German box set. However, it is nice to see these short, but sometimes very funny moments in this way.

Each season also has an episode to offer as a drinking game, in season 2 there are also extensive interviews with the creators and all the actors of the series. Plus there are karaoke sing-alongs, TV spots and very amusing clips showing what last happened on Drawn Together. Fans of the series are sure to find all sorts of amusing extra material here.

Conclusion: The three seasons of Drawn Together are nasty, tasteless, completely politically incorrect, sexist, racist, brutal - and, at most moments, funny as hell. The irreverent animated series is far more than just a parody of film, television and especially reality TV, but also a great social satire, which is only covered in some scenes of too crude tastelessness. Fans should not miss this uncensored DVD box set of the three TV seasons of the series. Nothing for children, but who is over 16 years old and likes it sometimes a little more irreverent and crude, but also does not overlook the cleverness of the series, this box can be warmly recommended to

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp