Napoleon Dynamite is the latest cartoon comedy to hit the chap stick coated block and it’s a pretty good continuation of the genius of its movie origins. It returned to E4 earlier in the year with just six episodes, and each one is a brilliant throwback to the origins of modern cartoon TV comedy.
The style is a mix of the greats of the 90s – Beavis and Butthead, The Simpsons and King of the Hill – with a lot of respect going to Mike Judge and Greg Daniels. Its off-key comedy wit is pretty unique though taking the characters from the film and developing them even further.
John Heder returns as the self assured samurai sword loving geek, Napoleon, along with the rest of the original cast from the film. With the small-town life of Preston, Idaho as his backdrop Napoleon and his family, friends, classmates and teachers get mixed up in all sorts of craziness.
The first couple of episode alone features cage fighting, rage-inducing zit cream, a love machine called the Scantronica 3000, Kipp’s mental contact juggling, Napoleon getting lady action on three fronts, a street freak chase scene and Pedro kicking a rattle snaked ass. Jemaine Clement’s (Flight of the Concords) psychology teacher in the second episode is worth the effort all by itself.
With only six episodes from the Napoleon Dynamite cartoon TVseries so far, it’s pretty hard to tell if it’ll have the same long term appeal as King of the Hill, but the first signs from the debut series are pretty promising.
Napoleon Dynamite cartoon TV series review: 4/5
The first 6 episodes of the Napoleon Dynamite cartoon are available to to download from iTunes
 from the TV news and reviews section of Tuppence Magazine.){kind=link}