The Jack and Triumph Show does the same thing the infamous British sitcom Heil! Honey I’m Home tried to do for the sitcom genre. They both take the standard sitcom formula and put extremely unlikely pairs together. Jack and Triumph does it better based on the sheer fact that it doesn’t feature Hitler as a whipped husband.
After watching “Triumph Comes Home” and “Coffee” it’s clear that Adult Swim is the only home for Jack and Triumph. There is absolutely no attempt at realism. Jack Malicki (Jack McBrayer) moves in with his racist TV mom, who publically supports animal rights, but is cruel to Triumph. Triumph is quite obviously a puppet whose puppeteer often drops his long prop arm, but he’s also treated like a real dog. If you appreciate shows that plow through the fourth wall and destroy your willing suspension of disbelief, while relying on it at the same time, then you will enjoy The Jack and Triumph Show.
The show is also an elaborate set up for what amounts to a bunch of Conan sketches strung together. The first episode is chock full of appearances from obscure celebrities and visits New York Comic Con. The trip outside the sitcom set was under the guise of two former child stars having an autograph signing session to make money. Any savvy viewer knows it’s just an excuse for Triumph to say outrageous things to ordinary peoples’ faces. The second episode, “Coffee,” does the same thing, only replacing Comic Con with a coffee shop and branding everyone in it as a hipster. Jack is there to play the upbeat silly foil to Triumph’s sarcastic and profane self.
Triumph’s full influence on the show doesn’t rear its head until “Coffee.” The entire plot of “Coffee” is gross out humor at its worse or finest, depending on your point of view. Since civit coffee is so expensive and is little more than coffee beans defecated from a cat, Triumph decides to make Jack his civit and sell that coffee. It’s a ridiculous plot that sounds like something that would air on Nickelodeon without all the profanity. After the first five minutes, it gets tiresome. We get the joke: The beans come from shit, but they don’t taste like it, so hipster will love it.
The Jack and Triumph Show isn’t bad, but one can’t help in thinking that Conan would have been a better format for this kind of shenanigans. There’s only so much you can take on a weekly basis before the absurdity of a cynical puppet dog and the impossibly happy Jack McBrayer taking on the world together becomes tiresome. Kids up well past their bedtimes who are in the process of outgrowing Nickelodeon will love this. In all honesty, that’s probably who this is meant for anyway.
Rating: 5 out of 10
all photos credit: adult swim pr
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Allison Lips is the Founder of Wait! What’s a Dial?, a television blog that showcases the writing of millennials. Allison graduated from Rowan University in May 2013. She has a passion for TV history, especially late night and game shows. If she could go back in time, Steve Allen would still be hosting The Tonight Show. Follow her on Twitter @waitwaitsadial.
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