Review: Good Vibes “Pilot”

Good Vibes is a brand new show on MTV that gives us the story of a 15 year old kid named Mondo and his mom, Babs who move from the Jersey Shore to Southern California. And judging from the episode, the new kid on the block isn’t going back home anytime soon.

Spoilers below!

Almost as soon as the family gets there, they are greeted by a local kid the same age named Woodie. Woodie takes a liking to Mondo, and introduces him to everyone at school…we get his bitch sister Milan, Wadska the local nerd, his adorable sister(and Mondo’s school crush) Jeena, the school bully Turk, and the ‘”lovable” Ms. Teets their class teacher.

While there, Mondo does his best to fit in. You see, he’s not “fit” to be a surfer and in order to live in this beach town you need to learn because that’s the only way you are going to be able to do two things, 1) see lots of boobs and 2) impress the girls. Dedicated to make himself irresistible to Jeena, Mondo turns to Woodie to teach him the ways of the board warrior. So, they kids go to a board store, pick one out, and almost as soon as he walks out, it gets crudely spray-painted to look like a giant dick! He goes to the local beach where all the cool kids are at to try his hand at surfing, only to be outclassed by just about anyone else on a board. As such Turk kicks him off the beach but says Mondo can come back on if he surfs the Baby Beach (formerly known as Jagged Rocks).

SO now that we got the setup of the story out of the way let me tell you what I think of the show. The characters are really awesome and play off each other real way with their quick and thoughtful banter all the while taking shots at the MTV-16 year old crowd and their interests. Ms. Teets however is the third obese person confined to a wheelchair that I’ve seen in an animated show this year (the others being Cleveland Show and Crash Canyon), but its cool because Danny McBride is absolutely hysterical. Mondo and Woodie make a really great team as well and with Josh Gad and Woodie as their respected voices, the roles are definitely suited for each other.

What I like most about the show is its originality. Its the first show I’ve seen in a long time where they go against the grain of an animated family ala the Flintstones model. Typically, all of the AniDom shows all have the classic setup, a husband, the wife that is too good for him, some kids, and usually a Fonzie type character that throws in punchlines and such alongside the father-figure. But, Good Vibes’ family right off the bat is a single-mom and her kid moving to a new place and having been in the shoes of Mondo its pretty cool to finally be able to relate to a character’s upbringing(even the fat jokes lol) and the struggles of having to fit in to your new surroundings ala new school, new kids, new home can take a lot to getting used to so I am eager to see what the writers do with Mondo next.

In all, Good Vibes has a great cast that delivers smart-vulgar humor that provides a cool chaser after a straight shot of B&B.