The new adult animation series Kevin, co-created by Aubrey Plaza and comedian Joe Wengert, has been heavily criticised for its crude script and lack of humour. The show, which premiered on Prime Video, features an unusually stellar voice cast including Jason Schwartzman as the titular cat, John Waters as a Persian cat named Armando, and Whoopi Goldberg as a brassy alley cat called Cupcake.
The series follows Kevin, a self-doubting house cat who, after his owners Dana and Dan split up, moves into a chaotic pet rescue centre called Furrever Friends in Queens. There, he encounters a menagerie of misfit animals, including a tyrannical pug named Brandi, a drug-snorting cat with an STD, and a failed actor horse who repeatedly offers to show her bum.
Critics have lambasted the show's script as 'blunderingly crude' and 'mean-spirited', with jokes that collapse mid-punch or make no sense. One example cited is Cupcake's explanation for her name: 'Because if you like what's on the bottom, you are insane!' which is described as 'not a joke but a handful of words in a raincoat'.
The show's apparent confusion between aiming for gleeful grossness in the style of Big Mouth and emotionally profound dramedy à la BoJack Horseman is noted as a key failing. Reviewers point to a lack of character development and a favouring of cruelty over empathy, resulting in a comedy that is 'a wasteland of imagination'.
The series has been described as so bad that 'steps must be taken to stop Kevin, or anything like Kevin, from ever happening again'. Particular criticism is directed at the repeated use of a 'prolapsed anus' gag, which is deemed insufficient to sustain humour across eight episodes.
