Sunday, September 22, 2013

China IL Season 2 Premieres Tonight: Previews & Reviews & Stuff

How can I explain China, IL to someone who has never watched it before without scaring them away from the show all together? Challenging. If I say it's insane (which it is), some folks might assume it is too intense for them or have flashbacks of 12 oz Mouse, which would send any human being running. If I say it is hysterical in the most original and unpredictable ways possible (which it is), you might liken it to Xavier: Renegade Angel, which was very original and unpredictable...but extremely unfunny. Hopefully you are getting a sense of what I'm talking about here...

China, IL follows the teachers and students at the worst school in America. Fuck it, hit the music. This will explain it all.



If your a fan of the ridiculously random, the eternally geeky and the insanely hysterical, this is the cartoon show you never knew you wanted but, deep down in your soul, always needed.

The worst school in America is back for another semester of molding minds and trashing campus property. In the new season fans can watch as Baby Cakes becomes China, IL’s Robin Hood after The Dean raises tuition to $500,000 a year, Frank desperately attempts to recreate a perfect lecture he’s given, and former President Ronald Reagan returns. Also in season two, the series has expanded from its original15-minute episodes to half-hours.Take a look at a sneak preview of tonight's premiere episode...



Season 2 kicks off with "The Perfect Lecture". School in back in session and Frank is struggling to find a way to make his students NOT throw up at the end of every lecture while Steve turns his teaching charisma up to 11 to garner the attention of a new student. Meanwhile, Pony has her sights set on the new jock on campus while struggling with the inevitability that one day, she will get extremely wrinkly. Oh and Baby Cakes makes energy bars. A killer kick off to season 2 with a surprising, fantastically geeky twist that escalates way beyond the limits of mortal human capabilities, as is per the norm on this show. Hysterical from beginning to end, but my ADD addled brain is going to have to get used to the new half hour format.

"Is College Worth It?" shows us the dangers of this extended half hour format as the show creators take a 10 minute premise and streeeeeetch the holy hell out of it to the point where you can hear the writers at Saturday Night Live starting the slow clap in the distance. To stay competitive with the other colleges in America, the dean ups tuition to 500,000 dollars and cuts the teacher's pay to minimum wage, inspiring Baby Cakes to rob from the rich and give to the poor...in his own, special, special way, providing all the episode's laughs. Frank and Steve soak the students further to get cash for new jet skis and Pony scrambles to make tuition money before registration ends or be doomed to face real life. It's absurd..it's ridiculously funny at times and then not at all, but more than anything, it feels unreasonably long. Huge disparity between this episode and the last. Hoping the funny comes back sooner than later.

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