Review: Coffin Dodgers ‘Pilot’

Spoilers Below

If one were to picture a series that featured old people in a nursing home with a tone and antics that suggest college life, you’d have an idea of what Coffin Dodgers (the pilot competing against Rolling With Dad) is about.

It begins with a young 84-year-old being dropped off at Golden Flowers Nursing Home by his parents – who must be unfathomably advanced in their age. As usual, the mother is hysterical with having to say goodbye to her son, and the father passes him a prophylactic.

The show carries on in this regard, with the protagonist establishing a crew consisting of himself, a crazed black geezer that vaguely resembles a taller & thinner Morgan Freeman, and an extremely young-looking 92-year-old with that Benjamin Button disease.

This episode was about the protagonist attempting to break the “cat curse” (a legend that claims anyone in a nursing home that is visited by a cat will die the next day) which is an odd coincidence considering Rolling With Dad had a similar plot line involving the idea of avoiding death.

This was an odd show overall. It had the light, airy feeling of kid’s show, but with loads of R-rated (or maybe PG-13) material; no surprise considering the creators are Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser of Drawn Together. To be more specific, there was a good amount of slapstick, sight gags, and characters yelling extremely loudly. The animation is also reminiscent of a children’s show, with very cartoony characters, similar to the style of Drawn Together. Mixed into this were some dark scenes and humor – some extremely dark, including an intense, violent, and terrifying ending.

I would be curious to see where this show goes, but I wasn’t particularly thrilled with it as a whole. I emitted a fair amount of chuckles, but there weren’t any extremely funny moments or hearty laughs. The best parts were the short little gags, and there wasn’t enough for the show to stand on these alone.

In addition, the characters didn’t seem especially like able. I’m sure they’ll get a chance to develop and find their niche as the series progresses, but I didn’t feel a real attachment to any of them.

Although this is a promising start, I wasn’t as drawn into it (ha, cartoon humor) as I was with Rolling With Dad, which gets my vote for the best of the two pilots.

@Gonzo_Green