Similarities regarding the word “south”

What do you get when you combine the character art from a Mark Hentemann carton like 3 South, the political humor of Seth MacFarlane, and the voice of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons? Why you get Fox’s latest animated show, Bordertown. That's what.

Didn’t even know this show existed until my dad mentioned it to me a few weeks back while we were talking on the phone. I was reluctant to watch it when I heard Seth MacFarlane’s name attached to the project. His work has been steadily less interesting for me as time goes on. The only things from his work that I care for are American Dad and episodes of Family Guy prior to its cancellation in 2002. Annnd his work on Johnny Bravo.

I decided to watch Bordertown just to see what it was about since only two episodes had aired. Other than hearing it from my dad, I’ve haven’t heard anyone else talk about it. Not from radio, television, online, anything. Episode one didn’t interest me in the least, but that’s to be expected because writers normally have to pen a watered down story that needs to include the majority of the characters to get introductions out of the way. For me, it didn’t catch my attention till the second half of the second episode. There were a few jokes in there that kept me entertained and interested in the story. From there episode three was pretty good too. The show mostly covers political, racial, and cultural topics regarding a town near the US/Mexico border.

As obvious as it could have been, I didn’t notice the character art was strikingly similar to another animated show until the end of the second episode. It’s the same character art as seen in 3 South, a show I absolutely loved back in the day that dealt with college life. The main character in Bordertown, Bud Buckwald, basically looks like an older version of Sanford Reilly from 3 South, and with the same voice as Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. There are a few other characters that look similar to other 3 South characters, so it got me on the hunt for 3 South episodes.

It’s a darn shame their hasn’t been a DVD release for the show, but some marvelous human has uploaded all thirteen episodes of 3 South on YouTube. If you never seen the show before, I recommend checking it out. To make it easy, I’m imbedding episode one here (hopefully it’s still there when you are reading this). Bordertown didn’t start as good as 3 South did, but here’s hoping Mark Hentemann, the creator of both shows, can make it as good as his previous work.

«Episode Se7en - All cranky as heck »