2 min read
Dan Harmon – the colourful (and often controversial) showrunner behind Community and Rick and Morty – is at it again. The first season of Krapopolis dropped earlier last year and while it’s yet to hit the highs you’d associate with either of the aforementioned, it’s a promising start for an animated comedy with a very different bent than most of what you can find out there nowadays.
While the bronze age setting is the first and most obvious thing that sets it apart, Krapopolis wastes little time in exploiting the sane kind of dysfunctional family dynamics that the genre (and Harmon himself) is known for.
As any good mythology nerd knows, the ancient Greek pantheon is known for its fallibility and humanity. They might have superhuman powers and traits, but they’re just as prone to bad decisions as the rest of us. Krapopolis takes this quirk for all its worth while tying together fun ideas about how and why we live in the world we live in. It’s familiar in many of the ways you’d expect, but it often ends up a little bit to the side of where you think it’s going – often in ways that are chaotic and hilarious.
The world of Krapopolis feels a million years removed from the likes of Greendale Community College but it’s sometimes no less harsh, cruel and petty. Just like Community, the real joy here comes from watching characters grow and preserve despite that.
It doesn’t hurt that the voice cast is as good as it is. Richard Ayoade brings a predictable but delightful energy as the young upstart seeking to bring civilization to a “barbaric” world that’s utterly uninterested in it, but it’s Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham who steals the show as the tempestuous and selfish Greek god, Deleria.
Krapopolis itself feels like a show with plenty of room to grow and mature. All the same, it's easy to see how the talent involved and the left-of-field premise could become the stuff of legends.
The first season of Krapopolis is available to stream on Binge in Australia. Those looking for Rick & Morty can find it on Netflix while Community can be found both there and on Stan.
