Lil Bush

NYPress.com

HOME OF THE WEE
Lil’ Bush delivers the oaf of office

Comedy Central has taken “South Park” by its dirty collar, thrown it into a particle collider along with Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” and come up with “Lil’ Bush: Resident of the United States,” a sometimes hilarious, often sick-in-the-head fever dream about contemporary politics. Set in a cartoon parallel universe during Bush the elder’s administration, the White House has an oil derrick and nukes in the backyard, Barbara Bush has a thing for little boys and George, the future 43rd president, is a smart-alec tyke in a blue suit. His kiddie inner circle includes Lil’ Cheney (with a lil’ scar over his lil’ heart), Lil’ Rummy (voiced by Iggy Pop) and Lil’ Condi (with early onset anorexia). Lil’ Jeb Bush is drawn as a mono-browed numbskull who’s barely able to speak, but George is advised to play nice because “you might need him to help you rig an election some day.”

Typical plotlines involve the gang heading to Baghdad to find a Father’s Day present, or George being visited by Christ, whom he nicknames “Goddie.” Lil’ Bill Clinton shows up in the arms of the Lewinsky twins, and Lil’ Kim Jong-Il, well, you get the idea.

Created by former Simpsons writer Donick Cary, the series originated as a collection of “mobisodes” for Amp’d Mobile, making this perhaps the first series to leap from your pocket to your living room and begging the question: If phone companies are generating better original content than TV networks, can Armageddon be far behind?

In “South Park,” and other cartoons where kids talk like adults, the humor lies in the unexpected sight of youngsters with big vocabularies and their keen awareness of their surroundings The genius of “Lil’ Bush” is that it has found a target who, as an adult, exhibits childlike behavior to begin with (with the possible exception of youthful curiosity). Thus, when George says “My brain’s tired of thinking of words so it’s time for a taco,” or explains that an oval, as in Oval Office, is “like a circle, but for rich people,” the shallow worldview is funny because it’s so painfully recognizable.

- Stan Friedman   July 4, 2007